The Key to the Past lies in the Future
by Gurz
Summary: Zurg had to have a past. He just can't seem to remember, until the day he realized that his dreams may not be as false as he thought. Permeated by Team Lightyear's crazy antics, one strange vacation on Planet X, and a chimera that steals hats.
1. Heavy Sleeper

**Author's note: **Shade, Rune Dogi, Zephyrs, and Zeryll are my property. If you try to steal, I'll sick Zurg (with a law degree) on you faster than you can say CURSE YOU BUZZ LIGHTYEAR! And I mean it too.

Zurg: I OBJECT!

Me: **Overruled**

Zurg: _Craters..._

**Zurg--I'm cold, I'm alone, and I'm clinically insane. Help me?**

***XR comes with big mallet***

**NOT that kind of help!**

***XR sulks* Awww, I never get to use this attachment**

The Z tower rose above the urban wasteland, looking particularly foreboding in the hellish atmosphere, where only black smoke broke up the blood red sky. Inside the dome of this demon-inspired architecture was a single room, bathed in all things purple. Purple curtains. Purple pillows. Purple carpet. Purple flooring underneath the shaggy carpet that you can't see anyway, but colored just the same. And each item in this room was monogrammed with a yellow Z, their sharp sides standing out against the sea of indigo, the color of royalty and resign.

Within this monstrously large chamber, seen only by one pair of eyes, lay a tortured soul curled up in a bed as large as a comet, making him seem all the more fragile. This alien, trapped in a foreign world, was the Evil Emperor Zurg himself. His normal battle armor hung in his ginormous closet, (he liked to make up words; it was one of the perks of being an evil emperor you know), along with thirty other exact replicas, identical to the last millimeter. Instead, he donned a lavender nightgown, complete with a funny little hat tipped in a ball branded with the letter Z. (He sowed it himself when no one was looking. Finally his Martha Stewart needlework classes were paying off).

And through his satin attire, one could see him as he really was; not a man hiding behind a mask, or a robot constructed by some mad scientist. No, he was an alien, all of him, glowing mouth grill and all.

And boy, was he buff. Muscles rippled underneath his tall form (he had to keep in shape to be so swift when wearing that bulky armor). His silver horns gleamed in the soft light, tearing his pillows to shreds every night. And his red eyes, with their sinister yellow pupils, were closed, shielding the rest of the world from his cruel gaze, and him from theirs.

But Zurg was almost unrecognizable for one reason; instead of his usual cocky grin on his face, an expression of terror dominated his features. His brows were knitted in fear. For all his "evil" plots and self-proclaimed reputation for being the embodiment of evil, he still found reason to be afraid of the night, not for its shadows or lack of light, but for the demons within his mind, clawing through his subconscious.

Zurg slept twisted and turned beneath his violet covers, almost strangling himself with the knots of velvet and lace.

In his nightmare, Zurg was where he always was; on a cyan asteroid, standing still as if frozen in time, with powdery white dust coating the ground. The whole perfectly spherical mass was silent, as if it was holding its breath, or took its last one years ago. Gangly trees twisted into the air, no leaves, only gnarled white branches resembling sun-bleached coral. Off in the distance, Zurg could barely make out a crystalline temple, dull under the distant starlight. Zurg, now dressed in his signature look, sprinted away from the structure, trying to escape the hated destination that grew closer and closer with each stride he took.

"Why does the universe pick now to defy the revised laws of physics?" Zurg whined.

"_Cease your incessant complaints, subordinate_," an eerie voice popped out of nowhere.

"What? Who said that? Show yourself so I may blast you with my HYPER DEATH RAY!" cue the dramatic pose, with one finger waving in the air.

"_That won't work on me, and you know it, nimrod_," the voice let out a shrill version of laughter.

"Ion blaster then?" Zurg searched for the right weapon.

"_Nope."_

"Plasma ray?"

"_Not quite."_

"Rubber chicken?"  
Zurg was thrown to the ground by an invisible force, smashed against the grainy land underneath. _"Are you kidding me? Honestly, you're not even a real challenge, in brawns or brains. You are no fun at all,"_ you could just hear the frown in his voice.

"Why me?" Zurg was flabbergasted.

"_Remember your past, oh soft one_?" a creature cloaked in shadows hissed with vehemence.

"Who are you calling soft one, you garbage-loving grub? I'm the Evil Emp-" his intro was cut short.

"_Silence, you pitiful weakling_!" the dark voice commanded. _"You're not evil. Not even naughty. Merely mischievous at best."_

Zurg's voice grew quieter, almost childlike, "What do you want from me?"

"_Oh stop your whimpering, sniveling coward_," the voice was cruel. _"With your memory repressed, I can't torture you half so well. And besides, it's not you I'm after."_

"Then why are you pestering me so?" Zurg demanded to know, while lifting himself off the ground, dusting his cape absentmindedly.

"_Because I'm bored, and there's nothing else better on Z.V.," _the psychotic finally stepped out into the light, revealing a man dressed in an entirely white outfit, with his masquerade mask covering his eyes and nose, leaving his wicked smile to strike dread into the remains of Zurg's heart. Long white hair stuck out from the creature's head, like a halo of sorts; the feathered strands twisted to and fro. His joints, chin, and nose were sharp, making him appear like he was carved out of marble with haste, and yet, with such precision that it made every girl drool over his exotic form. The man wore thick gloves on his hands, with claws spread out in a menacing manner. And his torso and lean legs were swathed in gleaming robes, the edges embroidered in Arctic fox fur. The fabric covered every inch of his skin, save for his face. "_You should have stuck with Time Warner Cable_," the man disappeared from view yet again.

Zurg turned around to face the source of the noise. He turned about in all directions, but couldn't see anyone for miles around.

"_Down here, Einstein_," the voice was projected from the earth.

Zurg looked at the floor and jumped at least three feet into the air, away from a pool of dark matter twining around his feet. "GAH! What IS that stuff?"

"_Nothing of importance_," the masked man shot out a ray of white light at the shadows, causing the dark vines to dissipate, whimpering as they retreated into dark crevices. _"Now onto bigger weeds…"_

His white boots crunched over the skulls of countless species, from Jo-Adians and humans to Tangeans and Chlorms alike with such ease, that one would have sworn the bones were crafted from paper. Zurg had a gut feeling that his head wouldn't stand much of a chance either.

In the blink of an eye, the spirit grabbed Zurg's throat with astounding speed, holding the taller of the two opponents into the air. "_It's all your fault."_

"What the halibut did I do?" tears streamed down Zurg's face. He knew he was going to die. Or was he already dead?

"_You gave her ideas_," the monster flung the poor emperor far across the land, shattering the light blue crystal surrounding the hallowed temple, as he plummeted into darkness.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	2. Diamonds are NOT my Best Friend

As he fell for what seemed like ages, Zurg cursed the fact that he didn't have his rocket boots on. "And I got them on sale too!"

As Zurg contemplated whether he should make rocket boot bunny slippers, for nighttime purposes, Zurg landed with a thud onto the marble tiled floor, forming a miniature crater. Cracks formed like spider webs around the site of impact. Dents covered his bucket head, and lacerations crisscrossed his arms, allowing a hoary blood to seep out of his body. Why, even his yellow teeth were chipped, with cracks spreading every time he grimaced. Oh this would not do for his self-image.

"Uuuuggghhh," Zurg groaned. Every part of his body hurt. At this rate, his nerve-endings would short-circuit themselves. His wounds felt like knives were continuously eating away at his flesh, and for his smile, well, someone might as well have taken a hammer to them. "Pains only fun when you're inflicting it on someone else." Zurg struggled to stand; limbs shaking in the process. "And I am NOT soft. I happen to take my exercising schedule seriously. I didn't get these rock hard abs from sitting on my throne."

As Zurg brushed his suit smooth, his eyes opened wide in surprise. "This is not my suit! This, this has lace! And frills! And all manners of girly medieval clothing," he discovered that he was wearing dark green trousers, yellow stockings, red leather shoes, and a ruffled puffy white shirt, covered by a smart royal blue jacket with red buttons. "And what tomfoolery is this?" he whispered, as he discerned that a bright green hat topped his sorry outfit, complete with a long bright blue feather. Realization dawned on him quite painfully. "ACK! I look like a colorblind Tangean! Oh the horror! There's not even a trace of purple anywhere on this attire. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" He shook his fists angrily at the sky, fighting back the urge to say i"Curse you Buzz Lightyear!"/i It wasn't right to give the bloke credit for everything bad that happened to him. He didn't deserve such an honor.

When Zurg got over that little episode, he surveyed his surroundings. He seemed to be in a glistening maroon maze of sorts, (the walls showed his horrid reflections from multiple angles at once), with so many twists and turns that it looked like those crazy lines from Disneyworld that were sure to drive even the bravest of mortals mad, and give them pretty bad blisters too. Zurg decided to try to get out of this funhouse, before something ielse/i changed for the worse.

As the hours passed by, Emperor Zurg's long strides grew shorter, his breaths became more labored, and his feet really started to smart in these uncomfortable shoes. Nevertheless, he pressed onwards, for fear of what would happen if he were to stop moving altogether. "I don't care what Brent Starkisser says. My robe is quite manly compared to this tragic couture." He sighed, "What I wouldn't give to be in my closet right now, with wardrobe fit for a king…"

As Zurg kept trudging onwards, his mind barely registered that the present section of the maze seemed all too familiar. Zurg's mouth expanded with rage, "What? I'm all the way back at the beginning? This is so not my day!" He reasoned, "It must be Monday. Curse you Mondays!" Zurg foolishly decided to sprint down random hallways, twisting like a crazy Jo-Ad with Bunzel fever, keeping his legs pounding, heart racing, adrenaline running. "There just has to be a way out of here, I know it!"

As expected, the alien man got hopelessly lost, stuck in a different section of the maze far below the asteroid's surface. He could feel the air getting colder, nipping his skin that felt so exposed.

When his rugged body couldn't take it anymore, Zurg fell with a thud onto the ground, too tired to move. His body surrendered to his pretty prison, but his mind was still free to nag him half to death. "Is this what it was like for Warp and the grubs?" he wondered silently, as his mind went on a rampage.

i"I can't perish now! There are so many things I never got to do! I never ruled the whole universe (for some reason, he could only conquer every other plane of existence except this sole galaxy. Where did you think all his vast resources came from? The flea market?), never got Vicki Vortex's number, or that second date, never got around to annihilating Buzz Lightyear, and never ever ever got to fulfill my lifelong dream of having my own television show, staring Zurg 24/7. Evil fun for the whole family!"/i

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," his hand waved away the nonexistent thought bubble. "I'm trapped in here, and that's all folks. It's not like I can magically end up at the exit by clicking my heels three times, or saying 'open says me,' or whatever that Arabian Nights book said." He slammed his fist against the cold hard ground. "This is worse than the time that buzz called me on making up the word trandibulator—" the ground suddenly opened up beneath Zurg, causing him to plummet once more through the inky black darkness. "Would it kill someone to install some light bulbs around here?"

As he prepared to land "splat" against the ground, as this drop was much longer than the first, he found himself astonished to be levitating a foot above the ground in one piece. Strong electromagnets over a super cooled conductor upheld Zurg's massive form. Zurg tried to touch the ground, but the magnets propelled him every time, so he was forced to do the breast stroke to swim/fly (swy) out of the situation, landing on his feet as he exited the circular room. "I guess trandibulator was a real word after all. A code word to get me here. HA! I knew it. Buzz'll be so peeved!"

His victory was short-lived, as Zurg realized that he was in a different cavern at the base of the structure. "Well this just dices my deviled eggs. This place doesn't even have proper upholstery!" Zurg was irked by the room that dared to be as nature intended, with jagged rocks, Stalactites dangling dangerously from the ceiling, and pebbles just the right size to trip careless feet. A pigsty!

"And what is this? I can't believe it." The color scheme involved white stones with green moss coating the edges of the wall. "AHH! I hate those two colors, especially in combination! I would say that Star Command is behind this operation, but they're not nearly so intelligent. I mean, come on, the dense Buzz Lightyear is their top operative. Sure, he's got the pex, but there's nothing going on upstairs, if ya know what I mean." He pondered in thought, "Hold on a second, why am I speaking aloud? It's not like there's anyone here worth talking to," he commented while eyeing another shriveled corpse in the background. "I must be going bonkers."

Zurg stopped psychoanalyzing himself when he spotted a dim light of in the distance. "Maybe that's a way out," he hoped, as he found the strength to run yet again, forgetting about the sharp pain in his side. "Zurg's back in business!"

He arrived at his destination.

"Must've gone bankrupt. Darn fluctuating economy."

Before him was a tall cylinder, at least twelve feet tall, filled with a sky blue jello-like substance. Small bubbles were dispersed through the entire mixture, coming from a bulky breathing device strapped to the evil white man's head!

Zurg nearly had a heart attack before he admitted that he jumped to conclusions too easily. It wasn't the same guy at all. Rather, it was a girl, with a slim figure, a lanky stature, and her body was many shades of blue. She looked like a diamond of sorts, crafted by a skilled artisan. Her arms were crossed against her chest, and legs dangled uselessly beneath her. Wires wove across her body, swaying softly in the liquid, just like her hair. The most striking thing about her was her eyes, lacking pupils of any sort. "She's at least a head shorter than the other guy. I'd say this sculpture's roughly what, five feet? Five foot two at the most?"

Upon closer inspection, Zurg jumped back in horror worse than anything he had ever felt, covering his eyes in the process.

"Eeeeeww, she's not wearing any clothes!" the sheltered guy screeched in a high-pitched voice. He couldn't bring himself to say "naked." It was unbecoming. At least, to spare his sanity from further trauma, the wires unintentionally acted as a saving grace, hiding her more delicate features from the elements. "I swear, as soon as I get back to the Dreadnaught, I am going to blow this place sky high!"

As Zurg shambled away from the cylinder, trying to avoid the rocks littering the floor without looking, he tripped and fell right into the glass, with his face pressed up against the tube. "Okay, just open your eyes for a quick second, use your eyesight to get the heck out of here, and then make a break for it," he formulated a plan. He pressed his hands against the glass, scratching it in the process, as he used the structure for balance.

"One…two…" (Zurg was a diehard fan of countdowns), "three." He opened his eyes, and what he thought was a vulgar statue moved towards him, hands separated from Zurg's metallic fingers by a thin layer of glass; blank eyes level with his.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	3. I win AND lose?

"IIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The Evil Emperor Zurg let out a piercing screech as he awoke from his slumber. He pulled his plumped plum pillow over his face, trying to stifle the noise.

After he stopped screaming that foreign word, Zurg started hyperventilating, clutching the blankets to his chest as he roared "WHERE'S MY SPECIAL BAG!" A miniature machine, named a millipede, swerved over to the emperor's aid, with a large pack of purple paper bags strapped to its back. Zurg didn't trust organics to be within his bed chambers.

The millipede rose on its hindquarters, passing the bag through its many legs until said bag was within reach of Zurg's long arms. He snatched the bag from the millipede's grip, ripping it in the process. "Get me one that ISN'T TORN TO SHREDS!"

The robot complied without a sound. This time, Zurg _carefully_ grabbed the bag out of the millipede's arms, and proceeded to breathe deeply in and out, in and out, calming his racing heart.

"I have to stop eating shrimp puffs right before I go to bed. They really do a number on a guy," Zurg developed an ingenious strategy to keep the nightmare at bay.

He tried to collect his thoughts about his dream that ended the same exact way every night, with him screaming not when the horrible spirit pummeled him, but when the distant statue moved. But why, why oh why would he not scream when he thought he was about to die, but would be ill at ease if he ever saw that diamond angel cry?

"It does no good to fall for a dream girl," Zurg massaged his temples, "and yet I can't help not caring about her. But why? I feel like I know her from eons ago, feel like I knew everything about her, but if she was so important, how could I have forgotten so much? And even though she needed to be wrapped in many more layers of clothing, in spite of my Anthropophobia, I can't help but wish that the glass wall dissolved between us, so I may touch her hands, fingers interlaced between each other. She seemed so lost, so sad," he sadly laughed, "but is it she who is trapped in a prison or me?"

He groaned, "And what is up with that daft white spirit menace to my peace of mind? Stupid ghost," he shuddered, "But it's just a dream, nothing more. There is no freaky masked magician trying to off me, there is no stupid ball of blue stone and dust, and there is absolutely without a doubt no crystal figure trapped behind glass walls!"

He stared at his Rolex watch and groaned, "It's 7:00am already? Ugh, I loathe getting up so early," he flopped back onto the bed, "but dastardly deeds wait for no one." Zurg decided to go about his daily schedule. The more he got into it, the less he dwelled on disconcerting dreams.

"Would you like the usual sir?" the millipede interrupted his thoughts, playing a tape recording of Zurg's voice, as it was one of the conceited man's favorite sounds.

"Of course, miserable little assembly of scrap metal," Zurg spat at the poor thing. He always ranted and raved at the midget, for it never fought back, or more importantly, felt pain. Zurg cast a sideways glance (always on the lookout for spy technology trying to determine whether he had legs or not due to some blasted fan artist--Darkangeleye? Darkangelpie? Oh bother. Whoever she was, whatever she was, she was going to pay eventually--and polished the contraption with a purple rag and much affection.

"Who's a good little robot? You are, yes you are," he was quite proud of this robot as he built it himself. The machine he cradled cooed in return. "Now, who's going to go bring daddy some breakfast?"

The tape recording switched to Lightyear's voice, as Zurg always fantasized at having his arch nemesis become his slave. Correction, broken slave. "As you wish, master."

"AAAhhhhhhh, that' more like it," Zurg sighed with pleasure, while putting on his adorable little spectacles with crescent shaped lenses. "Now let's get down to business, shall we?" He said to no one in particular, as he clapped his hands. In response, a blinking board covered in buttons sped to Zurg's side. Each button had a skull printed onto its tops, colored according to the planets, moons, or annoying space stations they were aimed at. As his eyes scanned over them, he mentally ran through the list; "Tangea, Capital Planet, Verdentia, Roswell, Porcelon (bunch of potty-mouths), Jo-Ad, Raenok, North Polaris (blasted Santa gave me coal again, and it wasn't even Christmas), Bathyos, Gargantia, iStar Command,/i Rhizome, Planet of Widows and Orphans (why do they feel the need to congregate?), ah yes, here it is," he pressed a button that looked like crown sprinkled covered its surface. "Warp Darkmatter's fourth summer moon. That should teach him for trying to smuggle sugar into my domain. The grubs were bouncing off the walls for weeks…" Zurg's eyes diverted their attention to a plasma flat screen Z.V. he had at the end of the room, watching the fireworks, a.k.a., explosion of Warp's favorite getaway. "I am so eeeeevil. MWAHAHHAAHAAA RUHHAHAAHAHAA HAhahahaHa _hiccup._"

Zurg grew depressed. He didn't like it when his evil laughs were interrupted, especially by something so annoying as a hiccup. How high school. "Miles?" Zurg commanded the millipede to fetch a large gallon of water, which Zurg downed as quickly as he could, enjoying the sensation of ice cold water running down his gullet. "Thank all that is evil that they finally disappear--_hiccup_."

…

Three gallons of water later, Zurg's lungs finally agreed to stop the bothersome noise. "It's about time!" he huffed, finally getting to sip Cosmo's coffee to go. It was in a mug with a picture of an atomic bomb inked onto its purple surface.

Zurg drank the entire concoction in one large swallow, having the liquid be filtered through his yellow teeth composed of fine threads of teryllium reinforced keratin, choking back the bitter taste.

"Strong stuff, but I like it," he smiled, while sucking the crumbs from his high fiber Bunzel muffins off his slender fingers.

"Now what do we have here," he smiled an impish smile, as he read Galactic Gossip magazine. Apparently twenty people have been killed by an extensive mob called 'Reapers,' that had its nucleus located in the heart of Trade World, a mob that he was the head of, unbeknownst even to his filthy Trade World workers themselves.

"Don't you just love aliases," Zurg smiled as he thought of his, _Gurz_. No one would ever suspect it was him, save for one fellow he wasn't going to mention now since he didn't want to ruin his morning.

Zurg flipped through the pages, chuckling at the obituaries, cringing at the mention of peace talks, and laughing once more when he learned how his plots foiled yet another attempt at a treaty between the Grounders and the Tangeans. "For all Star Command's ranting and raving about beating me every single time, they sure don't mention how I always win when working from behind the scenes. Dance puppets, dance!" he went into a fit of hysterics, laughing so hard until his sides hurt. "Ah, what a great way to start of a perfectly EVIL day!" he wiped a tear of joy from the corner of his eye.

Once he came across an article on the "Worst Dressed List" for villains, he burned a hole right through the papers, using red beams of heat vision sizzling from his eyes. He used so much heat, that the rays of doom ended up smashing through his precious Z.V. Oh well. It wasn't like he couldn't afford a replacement.

"For the last time, it is NOT a DRESS! It is a ROBE! Like the kind ancient Xyz's (shorthand term for those people who used to inhabit the mysterious planet X, called Xwhyzonianderthals) wore, sheesh! How hard is that to understand? And orange is not the new purple. PURPLE is the only purple. Dumb piles of slug guano. You're on my second hit list, the one about things and people that bug me, while the first list is dedicated to all those foolish enough to stand in my way," he immediately thought of Team Lightyear. "Bow before me! Bow before Zurg!" His arms were raised into the air for dramatic emphasis.

"You don't have an audience you know," Miles now played a recording of nana Zurg's voice, reconstructed from the best version Zurg's memories had to offer. "There's no need to show off."

"Yes, Miles," Zurg was brought back down to his slightly eccentric version of reality. "I'll behave."

The millipede chirped with glee before bolting away beneath the bed.

Zurg quickly rose from his oversized bed, slipping on his non rocket powered bunny slippers. They were plum, fluffy, and kept his feet warm. "Time to change into something more formidable," Zurg apparently decided to narrate his actions today.

He rushed over to his obnoxiously large closet. "Let's see, not this one, or this one, this one is tired, that is way overdone, I'm thinking about trimming the hemming on this one," Zurg flipped through his multitude of outfits, identical outfits, making up reasons why he couldn't wear anything but the last one he picked. "This is perfect, just my size."

"Now time for cologne," he slid down the hall into his bathroom, covered in lavender tiles with z's inscribed around their borders. The room was not as large as his other chambers w ere; rather, it was small and cozy so it could keep all the heat in. There was a picture of Buzz Lightyear in the corner, with various soot marks around it, as Zurg used the picture for target practice after a really bad defeat at the hands of that inane do-gooder. Needless to say, the marks were scattered all over the place, as Zurg's aim isn't very good (if it was, he would have finished Lightyear off by now). Multiple guns, ranging from old fashioned pistols to bazookas larger than his ion cannon decorated the wall in a great display of power. And yes, each one of those weapons was painstakingly altered to become waterproof. Zurg played around with Buzz's catch phrase, scrawling "To infinity and Beyond the Grave" underneath Buzz's large head, with an ego to match. He got a good chuckle every time he saw that.

"Play favorites," he triggered the voice activated miniature radio, which played the theme song for the "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" song backwards, since he strove to be and hear things the exact opposite of the "light side." While the song was playing, Zurg sprayed a bit of Green Mist cologne—the scent of EVIL—onto his chest, as his neck was practically nonexistent.

"Ah, I love the smell of victory in the morning," Zurg beamed, before moving onto his next ritual of cleanliness. He passed by a puce shower curtain circled around a normal sixed bathtub, (which was much too small for Zurg, forcing him to make do with showers instead of bubble baths), and had his hand sweep over the shelves of his many toys. There were troll dolls, melted figurines of hornets, XR, Booster, and Mira alike, a slick plastic missile for which Zurg made the special effects (the noises little kids make when they imitate an explosion), and a rubber duckie with horns that he poked to hear its pleasant squeak. "Hee hee," a laugh escaped his lips. "Ahem," he cleared his throat, thankful that no one saw that display of silliness.

He moved onto his next task; brushing his teeth, or rather, brushing over his mouth grill with a fine-toothed comb, straightening out the microscopic strings. Alas, the cleaning instrument colored not purple, but periwinkle, something that would soon be shortly remedied by his grub artists (whose idea of art involved paintball guns and color-burst bombs.)

After the playlist was over, Zurg hummed "O Fortuna" until it was time to rinse off his mouth grill with oil, to keep it nice and shiny. "Isn't that a winning smile if I ever did see one," he admired his image in his body length mirror. "The cape is the best part. It's so fun to have it flutter in the breeze…"

The alarm on Zurg's built in phone went off. He turned his right horn into a down position, so its tip was closer to his mouth, and asked, "Yello? Your overlord is speaking."

"_Zuuuurg_," Warp Darkmatter struggled to keep his voice calm, lest he offend Zurg who had the self destruct button to his favorite condo on Mahamba 6.

"_Yeeeees_?" Zurg played the ignorance card. "What can I do you for? Or rather, what can you do for me?"

"Uninstall all those detonations lining my villas for one," Warp's anger shone through his voice.

"Did you call just to threaten me, because my tablet of doom is in the next room over, and you know how light I am on my feet."

"You have feet?" Warp was surprised.

"It's just an expression, you crater head," Zurg almost blew his cover.

"Hold your horses there, _Quicksilver_," Warp tried to appease him. "I didn't call just to comment on the missiles that struck the place where I was going to host a party tonight," Warp couldn't help but let a little malice seep into the last part of his sentence.  
"Then why are you bugging me? You're no grub," Zurg failed at being punny (pun/funny).

"Our sources have uncovered something very interesting going on with Star Command," Warp enjoyed having this bit of juicy information.

"Whatever could that be?" Zurg started to feel bored. People got burned when he was left without amusing schemes for an extended period of time.

"I'm guessing you didn't see the censored program on the _Alliance Answers All_ show."

"I've been having…technical difficulties with the new Zurg-vision set," he lied unconvincingly.

"Did you wreck your flat screen again?" Warp wondered how chaotic Zurg's inner bedroom actually looked, as he saved his worst fits of rage for that area alone.

"TELL ME NOW!" Zurg screamed into the receiver. Warp's ears were ringing badly after that.

"Hey not so loud! I don't want to have to resort to hearing aids. They turn off the ladies."

"Just answer me before I get your behind into the Wedgie bounce, set to hyper drive," that was not a threat to take lightly. "That will keep you from your childish ways for quite some time."

"Hey, easy there buddy, we're on the same team, remember?" it was Warp's turn to squeak.

"I'm on no one's team but my own," Zurg crossed his arms as he harped on the subject of alliances for the billionth time. That emperor was afraid of commitment of any kind.

"Do you want to hear my news or not," Warp groaned, like a father does when dealing with a toddler with a severe tendency for tantrums.

"Well, yes," Zurg gave in. "So what is so important?"

"They've discovered a new asteroid in uncharted territory.

"They did what now?" Zurg asked, still faintly remembering his convoluted dream.

"It comes from section zeta subsection Val," Warp continued.

"Why should that be of any concern to me," his voice grew shakier. "They find new balls of rock everyday in that section and name it after some 'outstanding achiever of justice.' Heck, even I've combed through that quadrant dozens of times, and saw nothing of interest there."

Warp didn't seem to notice Zurg's faltering confidence, "Well this rounded hunk of space junk just appeared one day, spewed out by a black hole.

"So what? Theoretically, a black hole could 'hiccup' for lack of a better word, and spew out some of the matter that it sucked in."

"Zurg," Warp was becoming impatient.

"That's EVIL Emperor Zurg to you, minion," Zurg stressed that last part.

"The thing is blue."

"Are we talking about your skin complexion or the lens on the faulty deep space probe that snapped the photos?"

"The stone is literally blue and smooth, with a thin layer of white dust on its surface."

"And let me make an educated guess," Zurg halfheartedly smiled. "There's a crystalline temple jutting out from its equator."

"Yeah, how'd you know about that?" Warp was confused.

Zurg took the opportunity to faint, landing into his bathtub, with his feet sticking in the air, and the robes sliding down his legs, revealing his black boxers with, surprise surprise, yellow z's all over them.

"Hello? Hello?" Warp tried to get hold of the emperor.

"Huh, I guess the line was disconnected. How odd. Maybe the brain pods are tampering with the radio frequencies again, to remain undetected by Star Command espionage and whatnot." Warp sighed, "Sometimes I wonder who was the bigger fruitcake; Zurg or Buzz?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Come in Star Command, do you read me," Buzz was making a mission log, with his data pad raised right under his strong chin. "We have approached the asteroid in question, no mishaps in sight.

"Buzz," Mira groaned, while patting down her fiery orange hair with sky blue fingers, "Must you really make new logs every ten minutes?"

"Mira, Mira, Mira," Buzz smiled at her naivety, leaning back in his padded chair. "The balance in the cosmos can tip any moment, teetering towards the forces of good one second, and evil the next. It is our duty as space rangers to be ever vigilant, noticing anything and everything that could signify—" his speech was interrupted by one whiny XR.

"Blah, blah, blah," the experimental ranger groaned, wheeling over towards their beefy leader. "We've heard this lecture a thousand times already. Give it a rest. We all know you do that since you have nothing better to do."

"XR!" Booster was ashamed of his tin can friend. "That is no way to speak to your commanding officer, the pride of the Galactic Alliance, and my childhood hero!"

"You're almost as bad as he is," XR raised his eyebrows in a haughty expression. Booster mumbled something along the lines of "that wasn't a very nice thing to say."

"Buzz," the robot diverted his attention back to Lightyear, "I have two words for you; Victoria Circuits, or, as you prefer organics, Moon Me Sunshine. Eats up your time like Booster here devours Fusion Bars."

Buzz was trapped in blushing mode and could not formulate a decent sentence, and Booster was upset about the jab at his dieting habits, so Mira Nova came to the rescue.

"XR!" Mira was appalled by his brazen behavior. "Those magazines degrade both the model and the viewer!"

"What? It's not like he's gonna get any from Ozma, the icy beast of Karn herself," XR tried to validate his point. It only worsened the situation for Buzz, whose face was now entirely red.

"For shame, XR," Booster automatically replied, crossing his fingers in an x, before innocently asking, "Wait a second, what are those magazines about anyway?"

"They're about leaving boyhood behind, and becoming a man," XR beat his chest once with a tight fist. "And they're also about—hey, what was that for?" XR was reeling from Mira's mind scrambling antics, where phased her hand straight into the microchip in his floating head, and twisted around some of his more indecent memories.

"Oh nothing," she smiled, obviously pleased with herself.

"So Booster, as I was saying…what was I saying again?" XR's eyes popped open in astonishment.

"You didn't," he pointed an accusing finger at Mira.

"You bet your shiny logo I did," Mira grinned.

"That's an invasion of privacy!" XR's jaw literally dropped.

"And you're an invasion of personal space," Mira countered.

"Why I oughta," XR stuck his tongue out at his Tangean friend; more like an overbearing older sister than the girl he had a crush on a few parsecs ago. What did he ever see in that girl…oh right, her bright eyes, dainty frame, and fiery temper were a big turn on to the machine.

"Guys, get it together," Buzz dissolved the impending argument, as he regained the use of his left frontal lobe that allowed him to speak. "We have a job to do."

"Right," Mira and XR groaned in unison; Booster was the only one who sounded enthusiastic.

"And I have a feeling that Zurg is up to something," his ranger sense kicked into full gear.

"Why do you get a ranger sense anyway, Buzz?" Mira posed the question no one dared ask before.

"Yeah," XR chimed in, forgetting about his previous fight with Mira. "It's almost as if you see inside his head or something."

"Do you have telepathy?" Booster asked.

"Are you ZURG," XR blindly asked, "or maybe Zurg's good twin and he's the evil one?"

"XR," Booster corrected him with his extensive knowledge of Buzz's history, "Buzz already has an evil twin, who fell into the sun remember?"  
"But you didn't find any remains," XR still stuck to his guns, "and didn't have a chance to do a full-blown DNA analysis on him. For all we know, he could have gotten plastic surgery to look that way."

"Buzz," Mira had a hard time wording this aloud, "is there any possible chance that you two are, you know, related?"

All the other three members of her team gawked at her.

"I would NEVER be related to such an egotistical fanatical lowlife! I stand for all that is right with the world, while he is the symbol of EVIIIIIIIL!"

"Well, I'm not very much like my father," Mira weakly retorted. Unfortunately, that didn't dissuade her attackers.

"How could you connect the two?" Booster has a quizzical expression on his face. "Sure, Buzz's father was killed around the same time that Zurg stepped into power, but still, it doesn't fit."

"Even my ideas aren't as outrageous as that load of baloney. Sometimes I swear that you princess types are so out there, a few constellations short of a galaxy, get what I'm hinting at?" he elbowed her.

"Oh come on," Mira rolled her bright eyes. "First of all, I'm not the princess type. I kick butt harder than most. I even beat level 13, remember? A level even Buzz couldn't pass!"

"Oh it always comes back to that," Buzz's pride was hurt. "Who's the better ranger, the rookie who beat a virtual reality game, or the commander who fends off villains in the real world, who knew that Zurg needed the pen to start a hyper death ray on rhizome, with 20% more death!"

"And second of all," Mira ignored Buzz's last statement, "don't tell me that none of you ever considered it."  
It was Booster and XR's turn to be under the spotlight; XR staring at the ceiling, with his extendable hand behind his back, and Booster twiddling his thumbs.

"Booster, XR," Buzz had another gut instinct about their answers, "Don't tell me you've ever considered associating me with that, that thing."

"Heh heh, look at the time! Is it time for me to recharge already?" XR rolled into the back of the ship, hiding behind the crystalloid fusion vessels.

"And I hear Mira calling me," Booster waddled behind XR (it was hard to walk with thirteen different lunar bars smuggled in your pants.)

"I'm right here, Booster," Mira stated, with one eyebrow raised.

"You're Tangean, make some power up, like throwing your voice around," XR came to Booster's defense before witnessing Buzz's glare. "You know Buzz," XR backed away with his hands up in the air, "if you turn me into a toaster, it only further strengthens Mira's theory, since Zurg would fry us as well."

"You think that I'd even consider that?" Buzz, the dense boy wonder, only couldn't believe what he heard since he didn't see the sinister look on his face. It even made Mira turn around, as if scanning the path for debris was more interesting than the ongoing argument.

Booster and XR headed for the hills, almost tripping over each other, while they scampered towards shelter.

"Buzz, I'm sorry, but you have to admit. There are signs."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Didn't mean for it to go this far," she tried to soothe his rattled spirits."

"You're not listening to me," Buzz icily spoke.

"Stop being so stubborn!" Mira pleaded. "I'm just trying to help."

"Close your mouth, Ms. Nova."

"BUZZ!" she tried to get through his thick skull. "We were just goofing off. You wouldn't act this way if I said you had spider powers, or other such nonsense."

"You want to know why I'm acting this way," Buzz spoke softly, like a scorpion ready to sting its victim to an early grave. Mira gulped.

"That purple menace KILLED my father, ripping away any chance I had to get to know such a great man, leaving my mother to die brokenhearted, orphaning me the day I was born," this was unusual for Buzz, since he never talked about his personal life."

"I've been shipped around from foster home to foster home, distant relatives wanting absolutely nothing to do with me, never being loved, never being cared for, never fitting in until I reached the academy. It was there I found a place where I belonged, where I could do good for others and prevent such a fate from happening to any other lonely child out there. And I made the best friend I ever had, Warp Darkmatter. We were like brothers, and you-know-who came and wiped that all away."

He continued, "Forgive me if I rant and rave about his evil highness, Mira, but that's how I feel; broken inside, fractured into so many pieces that I fear I will never be whole again, all stemming from him. Why do you think I never manage to stick to a relationship? Why do you think I didn't want to get any more partners, desiring to work solo for the rest of my days? Why do you think I've never asked Ozma the big question when she was expecting it, ostracizing us to this extent?"

He answered his own question, "I don't want to lose anyone else. Don't want to take anyone else down with me. It seems that Zurg is just obsessed with causing me pains, dooming me to look around every corner, inspect every situation closely to learn the signs of Zurg's presence by heart, all the while expecting some other mace to come heading my way."

Buzz concluded, "With all the trauma he's caused me, all the suffering I've had to go through, don't you tell me that I might be related to the MONSTER that DESTROYED MY FAMILY, TAINTED MY BEST FRIEND, AND CAUSED ME TO HARASS EVEN MY OWN SHADOW!"

For once, Mira was speechless.

"Looks like your ten minutes are up," Buzz sarcastically retorted, as if he was a shrink from Rhizome.

"What?" Mira was caught off guard. Buzz was so two-dimensional, that seeing him as a complicated being shook the very foundations of her beliefs.

"As I was saying," Buzz spoke into his data pad, "We are now descending onto the asteroid. Landing gear seems to be in order. Engines area working at full capacity. No leaks of any sort can be detected. Signing off until further notice."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zurg squeezed the edges of his robe and cape, trying to get some of that water from the bathtub incident out of his garments. When Warp asked about how he managed to spill water o himself, he made up something about Miles malfunctioning. He couldn't really admit getting stuck in the bathtub and having that metal insect carve the tub in two, so Zurg could be released.

As this was already not a perfectly evil day, when Zurg watched Team Lightyear embark from their ship 42—how he hated that number—and saw them stroll across the seemingly untouched surface he grew much colder. How dare they enter into heading toward the manifestation of his nightmares?

"Warp," his lips curled at the name, "I need you to do something for me."

The blue second in command stepped forth into the limelight. His dark blue hair was ruffled, slight bags were under his eyes, and his breath smelled of beer. Thankfully, he wasn't totally inebriated; otherwise he would have been totally useless.

Zurg grumbled to himself, "_I hate his parties. Not just because he never manages to invite me to go along for the ride, but because they dull an already dim mind, if he even has one after all that alcohol shot through his brain cells._"

"Let me guess; I go in, steal something, scuffle with Lightyear, and get out," he had this mission pegged from the start. His robotic arm brought out a special plasma gun just for the occasion.

"Wrong, Darkmatter," Zurg arched his back, so he could look straight into Warp's eyes. "Dead wrong."

Warp was more than a little disturbed by this sudden change of behavior.

"Big Z, are you feeling o.k.? I mean, there is this flu going around; can you even get colds?"

"No," he tartly responded to both questions. "I want you to scuffle with Buzz, use the hornets to distract the lackeys, and—" Warp interrupted him.

"Allow you to whip out a hyper something or other to shoot at them," Warp was sure he had it right this time.

"Let me to finish my sentences, else I finish your life," Zurg stated calmly, with malice in each word.

This new attitude unsettled Warp to no end.

"Your antics would allow me ample time to get in, retrieve some data, and get out," Zurg completed his plan uninterrupted.  
"How do you know that there is going to be anything of value down there?" Warp wanted to know. "How do you even know how to get in and out? There are probably traps, hidden passageways, and corpses down there, or at least a wicked security system."

"Because…I've been here before," Zurg's voice grew lethally softer, like a cobra ready to strike. He turned around and gazed out of the window with cold eyes; the eyes of a predator. There was no way Lightyear would win this time. This was personal. This could help unravel the mystery of his dreams, his past, his life. There was a "before" era that he just had to rediscover, for Zurg didn't just magically become an emperor overnight. It was an enigma that prevented him from rising to his true potential. Zurg wanted to be in all his glory, not just the half-baked splendor he'd gotten used to.

"But when, where?" Warp prayed that he wasn't pushing this new and darker boss past his limit.

"Every night," Zurg shuddered. "Every last damned night, for as long as I can remember."

Warp was so astonished that the tightlipped guy managed to swear, that his mouth hung open.

"And Warp?"

"Yes Evil Emperor Zurg?" Warp wasted no time to show his respect for the brooding schemer.

"I have a very good memory. Don't screw this up."

Zurg's claws scratched against the windowpane, making a screeching noise that made his grubs yelp. his brain pods beg for mercy, his Agent Z plead for a raise to pay off his future hearing aids, and caused the emperor himself to smile a crooked smile.

"This is going to change everything. I can just feel it," he laughed the first heartfelt cackle of his life. "Hehe hehe he heheee ha ha haha ha haha Ha HAa AH AHAAHAHAAA AAA AHA AHAAA HA HA!"

Warp now considered getting an extension on his life insurance policy. Could anyone really blame him?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey there Buzz, old buddy old pal of mine!" Warp waved to Lightyear and company, while riding one of the yellow and black hornets, standard edition. His blood alcohol level was well above the legal drunk limit, but low enough for him to function in what he was best at; brawls.

"Warp? You're license has been revoked three times in the past month, and you're intoxicated!" Buzz yelled after him.

"So what?" Warp shrugged his shoulders, before breaking out in giggles. "You're gonna handcuff me now? Sorry Buzz, already went through that with this super hot chick from the second bar, or was it the third? What species was the girl again? It was a babe, right? I'm not partial for dudes, but you never know what will happen at those raves, with all the drinks being spiked, mine included."

"That's lewd conduct right there, along with drug soliciting, illegal parties, and I'm guessing you were the noise complaint from last night!" Buzz began furiously listing the offenses in his mind. He counted using his fingers. "That leaves you with thirty-two demerits for this week alone!"

"Only? Daaaaang, I thought I'd score more than that!" Warp threw his head back as he shot blindly at Buzz's friends. "Oh well, I can always try to break my record next week."

Mira had to duck and roll for cover, barely missing a supercharged shot that whizzed by her head, singing the tips of her hair.

Even without Warp's random shots, the gang was busy enough as it was, fighting off an entire division of hornets armed with illegal upgrades so sinister, that even Buzz had a hard time coping with them.

"I knew it!" XR's voice rang through the air. "I knew this was a trap. Why didn't pop believe me?"

"Maybe that's because you think everything's a trap," Mira rolled her eyes.

"Oh hardy har har," XR grumbled. "Let's just get this show on the road. I'm looking forward to squishing those hornets like the bugs they are." Twenty different squished weapons popped out of his small frame, ready for action.

XR would eat later his words, as the machines that stormed out of the dark indigo Dreadnaught were different from the normal kind of pansies they were used to. These hornets were a lot leaner, being built for speed instead of brute strength, causing their dexterity to increase exponentially. These battle droids were able to avoid direct attacks, delivering some martial arts blows of their own. The most heinous feature was their fingers, which were deviously constructed with crossed wires, so they delivered excruciatingly painful electric shocks whenever the enemy touched them, as XR found out when he grabbed one of their hands to fling them over his shoulder. Instead of swinging the hornets like a rag doll, XR exploded for the umpteenth time. His body was torn into shreds by the vicious hornet's teeth (they had teeth now?), while the glass helmet cracked in thirteen different places. Thankfully, XR's head fell into Booster's hands.

"Don't worry XR, I'll protect you," Booster assured the frantic robot.

"Protect me? Who's gonna protect you, ya big oaf?" XR's tongue was as sharp as ever. "We're doomed. DOOMED I tell you! If I knew I was going to die today, I would have brought that robe I 'borrowed' from that French hotel!"

"XR, I thought you returned that along with your apology note!" Booster was steaming mad as he rammed through the other hornets, uprooting the trees and using them as baseball bats to knock the still dumb as rocks machines right out of the park.

"That letter was for me. I was sorry that I got caught!" XR admitted. If Booster had a mean bone in his body, he would have flung the naughty robot into the nearest hornet's razor sharp mouth, their grins baring sharp triangular rods of pure teryllium.

"Guys, focus!" Mira commanded, as she kicked off the heads of three hornets, and hit pressure points to tear the metal limbs off of their hinges. "Buzz, we're dying over here. Call in some back up!"

"My team never needs backup," he was back to his cocky ways, while going head to toe with Warp. Even when high, Warp had a really good left hook, which Buzz learned from the giant red welt forming on his face.

"There's a first time for everything," XR's high-pitched voice begged Buzz to see reason. These 2.0 hornets were much harder to handle.

Mira phased inside of the hornets, ripping out their inner energy cores. "Buzz," she commented, "I don't know how much more of this we can take. Either you call in the troops, or I will."

"NO!" Buzz commanded. "As your superior I forbid you."

"You can't talk to me like that!" Mira was so enraged, that she defeated thirty different droids in one frenzied move, by causing a cataclysmic domino effect of explosive proportions. "That's the reason I left the palace!"  
Buzz stopped listening to Mira, ignoring her quick call for help to Star Command, ignoring the static she got in reply, not noticing how Booster and XR were placed in chains, leaving Mira fending for herself. Buzz only focused on wrestling with his old comrade, the betrayer, taking out all his anguish on Warp's sorry hide. "You were my friend," Buzz said through gritted teeth. "I trusted you."

Warp rolled onto the side to avoid Buzz's uppercut. "I thought we've been over this before. I was never your friend. Just a spy from the beginning."

_Mira was down for the count, electrocuted until she passed out. Her hair frizzed around her head, smoke coming from the ends._

"How could you turn your back on all of us?" Buzz screamed.

Warp was successful in getting Buzz to go into a blind rage, just as the new and improved Zurg intended.

"Hey Buzz, it's not like it wasn't fun while it lasted," Warp did have a shred of decency, "but I've moved onto greener pastures."

"Asteroids don't grow grass!" Buzz was being thickskulled again.

"And neither do Zurg's dungeons, but you're going there anyway," Warp released numerous punches, which Buzz blocked with ease by leaping into the air and landing behind Warp.

"Ha, you missed," Buzz let out a goofy grin.

Warp had him right where he wanted him, with an unguarded back just itching to be stabbed.

"Evil never—wins?"

A clear tranquilizer was injected into his back, the needle slicing through the suit and piercing Buzz's flesh. "I was never that drunk, Lightyear," Warp's voice grew somber. "It was just a ploy. A good idea for once." Buzz's eyes swerved to the side.

Warp sensed his confusion. "It wasn't my idea. It was Zurg's."

Now Buzz looked incredulous.

Warp shrugged his immense, "I'm telling you man, Zurg is playing a whole different game now; he's doing chess, using different planets as his pawns, while we're still learning how to play tic tac tonight you blow up," Warp ended up in a squatting position, as Buzz slumped to the floor.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way, but you only saw things in black and white. I knew shades of grey when I saw them. The Galactic Alliance isn't as perfect as you think. There's corruption that goes on everyday in government, and you fight to protect it nonetheless. I never got that. Some of those politicians do even more damage than Zurg could ever dream up."

"And as for Zurg, well, he sees things in color. That's why I joined him. I wasn't going to be blinded by right and wrong. Morals don't exist. Ethics don't cure disease, or ease poverty. Behaving like a good little brat didn't get my sister the treatment she needed to survive. Zurg's money did."

For the first time in his life, Buzz showed a little understanding.

"Nighty night, hero," Warp allowed just a littlest bit of sadness to show through his voice before his one and only friend blacked out.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While absolute madness was unfolding outside, the Evil Emperor Zurg strolled through the eerily silent halls, just like from his distorted dreams. He still couldn't believe that he had every last detail down. "Have I actually been here before?" he wondered. "I know I don't have ESP, since then I would have foreseen all of Buzz's moves and have conquered the galaxy long ago. I do have ESPN though, but that's merely a sports channel.

Zurg passed down the rows of maroon walls, half-expecting the wintery man clad in white garments to spring forth and strike him down forever, but he was nowhere to be found. "If he's not here, will the girl still be? She just has to. I need to know I didn't just imagine her." Zurg cast those depressing thoughts aside. Second guessing never got anybody anywhere.

"Serious déjà vu vibe going on here," Zurg shivered, hugging his arms. He descended down the maze as if he knew it by heart. "I suppose I do," Zurg sighed, as he descended to the center of the maze.

"Trandibulator," he coolly stated the code word, this time prepared for the drop onto the ground below, landing just above the powerful electromagnets in an upright standing position. He was literally walking on air as he left the magnetic room in search of the cylinder.

As Zurg moved towards the caves, he paused in rest. He could feel some memories fighting their way to his consciousness, but they wouldn't make it all the way, slipping back into his mind, locked away behind bolted doors. He leaned against the rocky walls. Whether it was the rough texture, or the room itself, it stimulated a memory hidden beneath years of pain.

There were others like me. Two adults. Man and wife, judging by the way they're handling each other. The man was an exact replica of me, except with a slightly smaller build, crimson red skin, golden horns, and a golden monocle (is that where I got the idea for Nos-4-A2's eyewear?). He and the female sported robes with jewel encrusted edges. The man wore a smart tan robe with golden lining, and ivory buttons lining the edges. A black sash completed his attire. And that woman, she was beautiful. She had neon green skin, thin willowy built, silver mouthpiece, but no horns. Instead, wavy indigo locks cover her head, cropped just above her shoulders. And she has a neck; an actual slender neck, with a heart-shaped head on top. She was dressed in a royal blue gown, with peacock feathers jutting out from her tiny waist. They both had obsidian staffs, a symbol of nobility I'm judging, due to the intricate carvings, the vast amounts of liquid gold filling in the depressions. But the most important thing of all was that I was one of them. I wasn't alone. Were they my friends, my colleagues, dare I ask it, my parents? I'm going for the last option, as I now turn around and stare in awe at what they're looking at; me as an infant. Oh, look how adorable I was in my devious baby booties. I looked just like my present form except miniature, with a much rounder head, and aww, I was playing with a giant monocle. How precious. Father didn't seem to think so. He looked at me with disdain. Germaphobic much?

"So that's one tiny segment of my life down," Zurg sadly smiled, "and an infinite number more to go." He tried in vain to snatch another memory from his unconscious, but alas, that was all he was going to unravel here. "At least this means I have a past, I think. My life before I was Evil Emperor of Planet Z is all still a blur, no matter how many sessions I take with that psychiatrist from Rhizome."

As Zurg got closer to the cave, with the same dreaded color scheme of green and white, white and green, he took longer and longer strides, running, nay flying past the rooms, racing towards the blue cylinder. Apprehension and excitement built up inside his soul. If anyone knew what was happening to him, it must be the crystalline girl. Gut instincts never turned out wrong for Lightyear, so why should it be any different for him, an evil genius? As he neared the tube, he felt the hollow feeling of defeat run through his veins. It was empty. The blue gunk was there, the wires still swerved about, but the girl, she was gone.

"No no no No NO!" he slammed his fist into the glass, cracking, but not breaking through its thick seal. "I'm sure that girl knew me, or I knew her. I'm sure she could have given me answers! Did I just come too late? Or was it just a ghost from my past, long since deceased? I, I can't lose her. I don't know why yet, but she was important!"

Doubts began to surface in his mind; maybe she was a mere hallucinogen induced by acid. Zurg never did drugs, for he's crazy enough as it is, but you never knew if that practical joker Warp slipped something into his drink…But Zurg was so close, so darn close to finding out the answers. He didn't have the faintest idea of what to do. He coudln't go back to the way things were. The dreams, the girl, have already opened up so many questions, and Zurg just wasn't designed to move on without answers. He was stuck in-between. Zurg fell to his knees, unsure of what to do next, or where to go.

"What's this?" his confusion was interrupted as he noticed a tattered piece of paper on the floor. It was parched white, and had actual handwriting scrawled across its surface.

_Planet X and Planet Z's demises were linked in more ways than one. Your little jewel plays a role in it as well. Follow the runes in the tomb of Anubis, where gems come to life, and flesh fades away, and the answers will be sure to follow, plain as day._

Zurg was thrilled to get this piece of information. Even if it was fake, it gave him hope, and that led to a reason to live. As he rushed out of the room, eager to embark on his new voyage, he failed to notice the larger crack at the bottom of the structure, with shadows dripping like water from the clean cut.

"_Run little lost alien, search for her, find her, then I'll dispose of you both," the evil white demon's voice bounced off the cave walls. _


	4. Fajer

The world forgot him,

but I never can . . .

For cloaked in darkness,

He's become more monster than man . . .

_**We all live, we all die, but as I speak the truth, you all lie.**_

As Zurg boarded the Dreadnaught, he raised his purple eyebrows—which were fused to his forehead—in surprise.

Grubs everywhere were laughing and chattering with excited exaltations. Colorful confetti littered the ground; bluish green grubs in unflattering red jumpsuits were inflating purple balloons, puffing their cheeks, making their heads look like gumballs with smiley faces doodled onto them with magic marker. They wore part hats much too big for them, covering half of their faces in the process. The hats were yellow and spray painted, by the Grubs themselves, with purple and yellow polka dots. As for their antennas, tiny holes were punched through the cardboard to allow their feelers to stick through. Even the normally repressed brain pods were enjoying the festive atmosphere, wheeling about the room, getting extra helpings of hot bubbling oil, and setting up indigo streamers in all the doorways.

"You won, you won, you captured all of Team Lightyear!" all of his lackeys were certain that Zurg would get much more easygoing now that the meddling rangers were locked away behind reinforced teryllium, force fields, and compounds that not even Tangeans could phase through. It was not every day that Zurg managed to get his way, no matter how much he boasted about his unyielding domination.  
Warp even dressed up for the occasion, as his previous ensemble was covered in grime from the tussle he had moments earlier. Instead, Darkmatter now wore a smart midnight blue tuxedo, with emerald buttons lining the satin edges, and snazzy green boots to match.

Not being one to control his partying personality, Warp rushed over to his side, hoping for a big fat bonus for the job he pulled, capturing Zurg's arch nemesis. He would need it to buy a different moon and build another summer home, to replace the last one Zurg demolished. "Up top!" he had his metal hand in the air, waiting for a high five. Zurg just walked straight past him, not even noticing the gesture.

"Or not," Warp let his metal arm drop weakly to his side. "What's up with him?" he nudged one of the brain pods next to him. Number 37 shrugged in response.

"_This behavior does not compute. He has achieved his dream of breaking Star Command's previously invincible winning streak. The old Zurg would have gleefully been planning an invasion of the Galactic Alliance_," the anxious mound of tangled nerve cells whispered to Warp.

"What do you mean 'old Zurg?'" the alien's hearing was impeccable. "I'm still the same vile villain you have always served."

"What 37 over here meant to say was—" Zurg interrupted Warp.

"I believe I was speaking to 37, Darkmatter," Zurg hissed. Warp immediately backed off. "Sorry kid, this one's all yours," He pushed 37 closer to the mountain of purple bipolar disorder.

"Uh…that is to say…_eep_," 37 felt that his days were numbered. He saw Zurg in action before, and you do not want to get in his field of vision when he was angry, lest one of your lifelong dreams involved being barbequed.

Zurg didn't look angered in the slightest. Rather, he had an air of melancholy clinging firmly around his presence.

"Speak clearly," he simply commanded the machine.

"Well, y-you se-suh-seem to to be, to be put off tuh-ta-to say th-the least," the mangled words jumbled together, but Zurg was able to grasp the meaning.

"The…item I was searching for resides here no longer," he chose his words carefully.

"That's too bad," Warp leaned against the magenta wall. "A temple built out of precious jewels was bound to have something even more priceless than the building materials combined."

"No kidding," Zurg rolled his yellow pupils.

"If you want," the cocky man made a suggestion, "I'm sure you can buy some similar product online, at , or Z-bay."

"No Warp," Zurg's mouth widened with disdain. "What was in their can never be replaced."

"Then you're taking it quite well," Warp noted at Zurg's more rational demeanor.

"That's because I have an idea of where it might have been relocated," Darkmatter was getting used to Zurg's piercing gazes.

"And where might that be?" Warp innocently asked before he chugged a sip of booze, disguised in his highlighter yellow water bottle.

"Planet X."

Warp spit out the alcohol all over the Evil Emperor's robes.

The party died instantly, with grubs scuttling out of the room, brain pods pulling their jars inside of their chest cavities, and the hornets, well, they just stood there like part of the scenery.

"Blast it all to bits!" Zurg was furious. "I can't have my minions spitting on—hold the Z-cam, is that a martini I smell?" Zurg's olfactory bulbs were well developed, even though he lacked a nose to sniff with. "That's a ticket to being locked out of my towers and into the electrical storm just waiting for its next lightning rod! You're arm will do quite nicely."

Warp didn't mind Zurg's ranting. It was closer to the Zurg he had come to know. Instead, the man was more alarmed with the mention of going back to that desert of disaster.

"I am NOT going back there. Last time I went, Natron sucked out my youth, leaving me to wither and die had it not been fer—err," Warp did not want to mention Buzz with Zurg already sunken into a bad mood, "well, never mind the details, but I won't go back! How do we know something worse isn't in store, just waiting to rob me of my life, or worse, my good looks?"

Zurg's claws tightly cupped Warp's face, sending a sharp pain through the blue man's head. "I'll scrape off your 'good looks' if you don't shut your trap!"

"Easy there," Warp's eyes glistened with terror. "I'm shutting up!"

Zurg proceeded to pick the shaking man off the floor, holding him up by the scruff of his expensive designer shirt—_rrrrrrrppp_—expensive rags. "And to avoid your foolish escapades and blunders," Zurg hissed," you're not going. Instead, you are to remain here and look after my affairs on Planet Z, as well as my not so secret operations intertwined with every business in this galaxy."

"You trust me that much?" Warp momentarily forgot about his pledge to stop talking.

"Of course not!" Zurg seethed, thrusting Warp to the wall, causing a loud thud to resound across the halls, as Warp's skull impacted the metal with a minor concussion. Zurg put his mouth in front of Warp's face and hollered, "Quasars, how dumb do you think I am?"

"But you said—"

"I said you'd overlook it, to make sure that everything was running smoothly, and take care of any annoying green and white pests in the way; not actually get your grimy little thieving hands managing it! The responsible pods 11, 23, and 58 will be in joint cooperation, running the everyday commands, shipments, and such," Zurg elaborated. His long dagger-like fingers easily dug into the metal in Warp's arm, as if it was butter.

"And NO PARTIES!"

Zurg cast the Warp to the ground, tearing the high-tech prosthesis asunder by accident. All that was left of Warp's was the hinge fused into his shoulders, and a lot of metal shavings.

"_**Have I made myself clear**_?"

"Yes," Warp whimpered. He was silently thanking the cosmos that it wasn't his organic arm that Zurg ripped to pieces.

"And Warp?" Zurg wasn't through making his point.

"Yes, oh most Evil one," Warp was piling on the compliments.

"Clean this second-rate scrap metal up, will you?"

With one simple sentence, Zurg made Warp feel lower than the gunk produced by the worms living under the dirt.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zurg's dungeons were composed on hexagonal rooms situated together like a one-layered beehive. They were painted in such a dark shade of purple, that it might as well have been called black. The prisons extended across the bottom of the infamous ship.

Four glistening cyan force fields covered the rooms on all sides, sending a nasty zap to anyone who tried to pry the bars open, or phase through their confinements, stranding the rangers until Zurg came running around, if he came around. His mind was usually so forgetful, that his prisoners would die of dehydration before he got around to checking on them, unless one of them was selected for explicit torture. He tended to remember events that caused other people agony.

Mira, Booster, XR, and Buzz were locked away in separate cubicles side by side, with XR and Booster on the top two, and Buzz and Mira just below them.

"Buzz," Mira called out to console their commander, her friend. "Buzz, are you alright?"

He didn't register her words, choosing to block out all stimuli, and suffer alone.

"XR," she wanted to see if Buzz was just ignoring her or if these particular force fields blocked out sound, "can you hear me?"

"No, I can't," his sarcasm ratings were off the chart.

Mira did not feel in the mood to argue.

Luckily for her, the negative feelings were dashed as Booster shouted with glee.

"MIRA!" Booster was ecstatic that his tomboy chum was alive. "You're awake! I thought for sure that those hornets frazzled you to...to..." he stopped speaking, struggling to hold back burning tears instead. As the more sensitive of the bunch, Booster's emotions were harder to reign in.

"Ah sure," XR whined, "Everyone worries about Mira, but what about the disembodied head over here? I can't even cross my arms in anger, or throw them up in despair!"

Mira had an intense urge to kick XR's bronze head into to the next galaxy. Booster had been through enough as it was.

Speaking of XR, that robot's eyes turn into slits, as he had an intelligent inquiry for once, "Booster, how come you didn't go all overboard with the waterworks when Mira tried to get Buzz to start talking? Late reaction time?"

The gentle giant blushed, turning his red skin a slightly darker shade, "Well, if you must know, she was shocked an awful lot, and the hornets kept zapping her even after she stopped moving," tears brimmed in his eyes. "I thought that Mira was gone forever, and I was imagining things."

"Oh Booster," Mira felt for the fragile soul, "don't worry about me. I'm fine, really. I just have a terrible hair day, that's all." She wished she could give the poor loveable guy a hug, but the heartless room prevented her.

"I'd rather have an ugly hairdo than NO BODY!" XR tried to redirect the attention to himself. He was just programmed that way by the LGMS, possibly to serve as a good distraction. That would account for how he gets blown up most of the time; he was always the first ranger targeted by weapon systems.

"Tell me your locations, to the best of your ability," Mira tried to formulate a plan since Buzz didn't seem like he was going to come out of his bout with depression anytime soon. He was too busy feeling humiliated by failing his mission, letting his team down, and not taking Mira's advice while he had the chance, not to mention how he was trying to make sense out of Warp's words. Surely the Galactic Alliance was free from corruption, or else all that he fought for was a lie. "I can never say _evil never wins _again," He sadly thought to himself.

"I can't see much through the bars except more cells," Booster couldn't find any useful information to report. "Sorry Mira."

"It's not your fault that Zurg is redundant in his decorating schemes," XR tried to cheer him up.

"And where are you, XR?" Mira tried to get him to focus.

"I'm up here!" XR rolled his eyes about, as he didn't have arms to shake, "wherever 'here' is."

Booster gasped, "You mean robot heaven?" He started having a fit, sniffling about his short companion.  
"Oy ve!" XR would have slammed his hand across his glass home, if his body was still intact.

"No Booster," Mira calmed him down. "XR is just on a higher level than me."

"Thank goodness," Booster let out a sigh of relief. "I couldn't handle it if he was really gone. He's my best friend."  
"You really mean that buddy?" XR's eyes shone with gratitude for being appreciated.

"Of course," Booster vigorously nodded his head. "Who else would I tell ghost stories too after midnight, or cover for me while I cheated on my diet when no one was looking?"

"Section Q subsection delta, paragraph four, line seven," Buzz's subconscious forced him to mutter those words aloud.

"What?" Mira asked aloud.

"It's the section about honoring the standard after hours procedures while being docked in Star Command, which include honoring the sleeping schedules that keep your mind alert," Booster was proud of himself for remembering that fact. He had been reading the Star Command handbook every night since he joined the team, in the hopes that it would help him be a better ranger.

"Looks like our leader can talk," Mira quietly stated, "but only about the rules."

"What's the problem then, Mira?" XR jeered. "That lug nut acts that way all the time!"

"XR," Booster stated the obvious, "Buzz is brooding right now, and won't help make a plan. That's what's wrong."

"True," XR saw the point. "He usually is much perkier and goes on and on and on about battle strategies, how he won't change his catch phrase, and about how Zurg will never win."

"So what caused the sudden change?" Booster wondered.

"Zurg won," XR hit the nail on the head so hard, that the metal screw shattered.

Booster scolded XR, "Don't say things like that! As Commander Nebula always said, the bad guys only win when you let them. Don't you remember?"

"Has pop ever been locked away in Zurg's dungeons without reinforcement?" XR chimed in.  
"Of course!" Booster said. "That's why he lost his leg! Zurg crippled him in one of these chambers, and sent him off on his way to live by pushing papers. The poor man always hated paperwork."

"Was he trapped in here without the base knowing that he was captured?" XR prodded Booster's memory banks.

"No sir," Booster was saddened. "He notified out headquarters as it happened, so they sent back up to help break him out—"

"—before Zurg was able to change his mind and finish the job," XR completed Booster's train of thought. "And guess what? Nobody knows we've been captured!"

Booster wailed, "I don't want to have my leg chopped off! Peg legs don't even come in my size!"

Mira intervened before things got any more out of hand. "Stop worrying about nothing this instant!" Mira scolded both XR and Booster. "We've gotten out of stickier situations before."

"Yeah," XR commented, "but that was because old blues over there came up with a plan and saved our sorry kiesters in the end, except for that time where I saved all of you from the devolving gas," XR smiled at that memory. "Good times, good times."

"XR," Mira tried one last time to get the robot to start thinking positively, so they would work on an escape plan, "if we give up, what will Zurg do to you?"  
"Melt down my microchip and hang my cute head as a centerpiece?" XR shivered with fear.

"Right," Mira commented. "But if we get out of here, what will you be able to do?"

"Take pictures of you in the shower," XR grinned from perverted joy.

"XR!" Mira was enraged.

"I mean I'd grab a cup of oil while we all chow down on the food at Cosmo's," XR brought his fantasies back down to a pg level.

"Oh, Cosmo's," Booster drooled. "I will order the triple-decker jumbo sized Saturn Sunday for starters, and then get some double hot fudge brownie batter and jalapeno soup, with some butter ball baskets filled with crispy brown cashews deep fried in Bunzel juice…" he went off in his own little world full of so many dishes and so little mouths to stuff.

"Okay," Mira didn't know who she was more disturbed by at the moment. "That being said, what do we want to do?"

"Go to Cosmo's!" Booster cheered.

XR used his right to remain silent.

"_XR_," Mira spoke in an intimidating manner.

"Go to Cosmo's," he pouted. "Woo hoo."

"Buzz, you can join in anytime," Mira knew that they needed their whole team to be united if they wanted to have a chance against this new and improved Zurg.

"Buzz, this is really getting annoying. Why are you—"

She broke off midsentence, as Buzz snarled, "He's coming."

"What are you talking about? I didn't hear anything," XR stated, "and didn't see horns or bolts of that Bucket Head."

"I'm telling you that he's on his way over here," Buzz insisted. "I can feel it."

"Okaaaay, let's try an experiment," XR wanted to prove Buzz's deliriousness to himself. "Hey Bucket Head, are you there?"

"XR," Booster warned, "he'll only get madder if you call him that! Do you want him to throw your head in metal eating acid?"

"Relax Booster," XR laughed. "Do you hear any screams of 'that's Evil Emperor Zurg to you, punk' bouncing down the halls?"

"No," he admitted.

"Then it's safe to say that purple piece of work isn't here, are you Zurg?"

The halls still remained silent.

XR continued, "Nope? Alrighty then. Guess no one's home."

"Try over here," the familiar dual-toned voice came from the old Bucket Head himself, staring XR right in the artificial corneas.

---------------------------------------------------------

Earlier, Zurg had been aimlessly roaming the inner bowels of his ship, not sure of what to do with his hostages. He didn't feel in the mood to actually murder them. Never had either. He wanted to rule people, not obliterate them. What would be the point in ruling the galaxy if you had to shovel through a pile of corpses to get their? It wasn't worth it.

"I once slaughtered a man, but that was so long ago... Zeru Lightyear, a wild card that one was." Zurg frowned. That was one memory he tried to avoid.

"Stop thinking about that crazy old bloke you purple lummox! Try thinking about a happy memory, like how I almost destroyed Christmas. Sure, I didn't actually get rid of the overweight geezer, but I did get to Buzz's newspaper, even though I had the same subscription at my place. Haha ha, that was so much fun. It shall be a holiday tradition henceforth," Zurg actually took that down as a note, scribbling it onto the back of the crinkled paper that had the clues to his mystery girl on it.

After that little deviation from the path of dark deeds, Zurg redirected his attention to the situation at hand, "I can't just let them go free. That would destroy my reputation, and then it would be work work work, crushing skulls here and there, trying to maintain order as hordes of smalltime thieves and burglars tried to take my throne. I won't allow such a fate to befall my domain. This is my home, and I will not let some other nitwits get their grubby (no offense to my grubs) little hands onto my empire."

He sighed, "What I _really_ need to do is go to Planet X, but I can't bring along Lightyear and crew for the ride. They would find some way to screw things up. Then again," the emperor twiddled his thumbs round and round, "I can't just keep them, leaving them here to wreak who knows what kind of chaos in my fortress of degraded morals. And by just leaving them here, Buzz'll know for sure that I am, as he puts it, 'up to no good.' My courses of action always start to unravel after he says those four words, for it causes him to enter 'blind hero mode,' forgoing all of his instructions, breaking down all my traps, hunting me down, and foiling my meticulously crafted plots. They're not easy to make either. It takes time, effort, and plenty of unibucks to create schemes of such magnitude."

He found yet another potential hazard in his distant future, "Even if I reach my destination, the LGMs and Star Command have already set up a blockade around the planet, to prevent people from stealing rare artifacts, or from unleashing another undead mummy onto the unsuspecting universe."

As Zurg crossed his arms in discontent, a diabolical idea came to his mind. "Ohhohho, Zurg, you are too good, I mean bad, which is good." He let go of that last philosophical debate lest it muddle his mind even more. Instead, he focused on his fiendishly clever scheme, smiling slyly at his inside joke; "A trade will be in order, and galaxy knows that I am wicked at bargaining."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zurg glided down to the dungeons, after giving himself a pep talk on how devilish he really was. In order to make his ploy convincing, he had to harass Lightyear just a bit, and keep all his old mannerisms, so the rest of the universe would expect Zurg to act the same old way. As Warp and 37 so bluntly put it, something had changed inside the emperor, "Or maybe," Zurg thought to himself, "I was changing all along, bit by bit. It just took a trip to the blue rock for someone to become the wiser, and notice the difference in my behavior."

Zurg ignored his deep thoughts, devoting all his attention to preparing a big entrance, but as plans tend to do, they changed after his keen horns picked up an interesting conversation.

"Lightyear broken already," Zurg tried to hide his smile behind his hand, "just because Warp beat him with a stroke of luck and deceit? I should have tried that years ago if that's all it took, instead of having incredibly costly experiments and artillery blow up in my face."

So Zurg crept closer and closer to the cells, trying to sneak up on his hostages, so he could get better location to eavesdrop on their conversation. He struggled to contain his giggles and chortles at their pain, almost vomited when Mira tried to appease Booster with kind words, and dropped his jaw as XR made some twisted suggestions that would make Warp proud. "What the halibut did those LGMs _do_ to that hunk of whiny space junk?"

But when the conversation changed direction to Zurg, as Buzz somehow got a whiff of his presence— "_Maybe I __**do**__ wear too much cologne_,"—Zurg couldn't stand it any longer. After all, that treacherous little bugger, XR, was defiling his name. Bucket Head indeed!

So Zurg enjoyed it very much when he scared that stick with goggles halfway to short circuiting. "You, little fool, will pay dearly for those comments. Nos-4-A2 may have scared you to pieces, but his creator should terrify you even more," Zurg sounded so sinister, that he couldn't help but throw in a maniacal laugh, "MWAHAHah haha haaaaaa!"

XR would have leaked diesel fluid, if had he still had a body to soil.

"Zuuuuurg," Buzz growled.

"Oh must we really go over the introductions every time we meet?" Zurg waved his hand in a circle, "It gets old really fast."

"What are you planning to do with us?" Mira asked. "Test out your new torture devices? Last time you tried it, Booster and XR managed to enjoy themselves, and I phased right out to free us all."

"That wasn't my idea," Zurg glowered. "Stupid interns, they wouldn't know torture if I set them on the Wedgie Ray at atomic settings!"

"Are you going to…to…" Booster couldn't finish the sentence. His poor ma and pa would be devastated if their Bunzlekins was annihilated.

"Kill you?" Zurg finished Booster's query. "Of course not! You'd get blood all over my terrazzo, and I just had it polished."

He continued his rambling, "No, I have something much better in store for you four."

"You won't get away with it, whatever 'it may be!" Buzz warned him.

"Foolish Lightyear," Zurg chuckled, "but I already have. Isn't that right, Commander Nebula?" Zurg waved to a large floating screen that trailed behind him. "Say hello to my captive audience, you old goat. Wouldn't want to estrange your mechanical son."

"For the last time, HE'S NOT MY SON!" Nebula couldn't let that snide go.

"That hurts, pop, it hurts deep, right in the engine cavity," XR's lip quivered.

"Ah, don't take it the wrong way," the decorated commander tried to get XR to stop moping.

"What a touching reunion," Zurg faked some sympathy, holding his hands over his heart, "and here I thought you couldn't stand the bothersome faulty machinery."

"What are you planning?" Commander Nebula wanted to get to the bottom of this. "And why'd you call halfway during the night?"

Zurg redirected the floating camera in directly in front of the jailbirds.

"Sweet mother of Venus," Nebula gawked, "he captured _all_ of you?"

"Oh, yes he did!" Zurg hopped with glee. "And if you want them back alive, you'd best do as I say."

"What are your demands, Zurg:" a pained look crossed over Nebula's face, "the Galactic Alliance to dissolve, to be crowned emperor of the entire quadrant, to demolish Star Command, or to overtake the shrimp puff factory?" He went through the usual goals that Zurg had.

"A vacation," Zurg simply stated.

Nebula's mustache straightened into two tight lines.

Mira's bright eyes went wide with confusion.

XR thought that the purple monstrosity finally cracked.

Booster had a nightmarish vision of Zurg in a Hawaiian t-shirt and Bermuda shorts, while sipping a peanut colada poolside.

And Buzz thought it was just some trick to get Star Command distracted from his real schemes.

"We're not a travel agency," Commander Nebula reminded him.

"If you really want to take some personal time off," XR chimed in, "I suggest the spas at Rhizome. I know this guy who could get you the deal of a lifetime, for a small director's fee, of course."

"I want to vacation in Planet X," Zurg went into details.

"Quasars," Nebula groaned, "Why would you want to take time off there?"

"Probably to rediscover some ancient evil, like the space mummy," Buzz inferred, "but you're too late Zurg! Our LGMs have already scanned the entire planet, and have found no other such power available for your claws to get a hold of."

Zurg gave a short history of himself, "I live on a planet where electric storms happen daily, with red dust as far as the eye can see, and tendrils of smoke unendingly adding to the smog choking the poisonous air. The scalding hot days can reach above 100 degrees Celsius, and the nights plummet to temperatures hovering above absolute zero, and you question why I would like to spend some time on a simple calm desert?"

"But that's it?" Mira questioned. "All you want is a trip?"

"Evil emperors need breaks too," Zurg explained. "It's not like we're just some machine you can turn on and forget about, spewing out spreadsheets and malicious plans on a whim. It tires a guy out."

"Hey, I take offense to that!" XR regained his confidence.

"And I intended it," Zurg rolled his yellow pupils over to XR, immediately silencing the little bugger.

Zurg redirected his attention to the commander, "But to attain my pleasant retreat, I require all Star Command vehicles to leave the vicinity, so I don't have to get unneeded headaches about you descending onto my territory and wreaking havoc on my well-deserved rest."

"And if we don't do as you say?" Nebula hoped that his favorite rangers could break out of their confinements so he wouldn't have to give in to the man who ended his career.

"Then I'll have to air this on all the frequencies, causing Star Command untold heaps of embarrassment, and stimulating other vagabonds to become more aggressive, believing that the mighty defenders of the universe were too weak to fight back," Zurg's voice was serious.

"We wouldn't want that now, would we? Not when we could avoid the whole situation by a little r and r for me."

Nebula's brows furrowed with discomfort, as he realized that there was no other way to get out of this blasted situation.

"How long?" His voice grew haggard.

"One week, two weeks tops," Zurg felt that it was enough time to scour the ruins for remnants of his past and make a quick stop by Planet Rhizome's spas.

"Commander," Buzz didn't believe that his mentor would surrender so easily, "you can't be serious."

"What choice do I have?" Nebula groaned. "I'm not losing my best team when there's an alternative."  
"But this is Zurg we're talking about," Buzz was torn out of his state of despair, and thrust into his usual obstinate ways. "Two weeks without Star Command intervention in his business is like two years of letting the Raenoks run the solar system!"

"Buzz," Nebula's voice lost all emotion, "as long as Zurg doesn't broach the agreement, doesn't attack the citizens of this galaxy, you are hereby stripped of the duty to track Zurg's comings and goings."

"But sir!" Buzz couldn't believe his ears.

"That's an order," Nebula's harsh words stunned Buzz, causing his mouth to hang open, uselessly.

"Ah goodie, now that that's settled…" he and Nebula made arrangements for Team Lightyear to be exchanged for a short time span of invincibility.

"And if I'm double crossed," Zurg gave the final warning, "I'll make certain that the grubs bring the extra-strength zetergent, used for cleaning up crime scenes. Have a wonderfully terrible day," he signed off, ending the transmission.

"That was deviously pleasing, wouldn't you agree?" Zurg asked aloud. "I liked the part where Nebs agreed to my conditions. And I got the whole charade on tape too!"

Buzz grumbled about getting a certain purple head placed above his holographic mantle.

"What's the matter Buzz? Still think I've got an ulterior motive?"

"I KNOW you have an ulterior motive," Buzz seethed.

Mira still tried to find a purpose to Zurg's chaotic ways, "Buzz has a point there. You can't have went through all this trouble, setting us up at the asteroid, imprisoning us, and scheduling a tradeoff just to go on holiday. That doesn't make any sense."  
"Why does that concern you?" Zurg boasted about his vast intellect, "So what if your puny mind can't comprehend my vast superiority to you pitiful mortals, your spoiled highness," Zurg hit her buttons, just because he could.

"You're not supposed to call her that!" Booster curled into a ball, preparing for the worst.

XR tried to roll his head away from what he was sure to be an explosion of words and possibly metal parts, "But he did anyway. Just watch out for her volcanic eruption."

Mira Nova became a supernova, letting all the rage she stored inside explode, "Look who's talking, you arrogant, pompous, xenophobic pile of molted Chlorm exoskeletons! You just flaunt your power, decorating everything in that horrid color; you're even more self-centered than Warp!"

Zurg's eyes narrowed, as he automatically ripped through her bars, curling them backwards, making them look like twisted teeth. He ignored the electric shocks that would have killed ten normal men, letting the blue electricity dance between his horns and out his eyes.

"I'd watch what I was saying if I were you, princess," he sneered, as he slammed his fist inches from Mira's face, through the wall of Buzz's cramped cell, with such speed that Mira didn't even have time to flinch. Buzz so shaken by Zurg's sudden display of violence, that he misplaced his reservoir of snappy comments. The metal fist came within centimeters of his face.

"Next time anyone talks to me that way, I won't miss," Zurg spoke the truth. He then proceeded to yank his arm out of the wall, snapping the cords that clung to his electrically charged forearm, and turned his back to the dazed team in one fluid motion.

"HORNETS!" he cried to the guard droids dragging away the Z screen away, "transfer these prisoners to different cells. Their containment fields seem to have blown a fuse…"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zurg stormed away, leaving the team in smaller cells, with much less ventilation. "That will teach them for messing with me," He threw his cape behind him, taking slow deliberate steps, each one louder than the next. No matter how loudly he stomped, he just couldn't get Mira's words to stop ringing in his silver horns.

"ARRGGHHH! This just ruffles my robes!" Zurg slammed the door to his room, requesting not to be disturbed. He could feel another memory coming on.

"Is this going to be a regular thing?" Zurg groaned. There was only so much insanity that he could take. The memories started to play like a film reel inside his head.

"I guess it's my own fault. I'm the one who wanted to have a past, but in my defense, I didn't know that there would be this much emotional baggage!"

_Zurg found himself in another room, not much unlike his own throne room, with the wide open expanse, the grey floating seat of power, and a large dome towering above even his own lofty head. But the atmosphere was different, tensed with anticipation. _

_His father was seated on the massive chair, with the crimson skin shining eerily under the strong florescent lights, like freshly spilt blood. The gleaming monocle only magnified the look of pure unadulterated fury in his eyes, directed at a smaller version of Zurg. _

_The teenaged version of Zurg, with a lankier build, smaller horns, and innocent eyes, stood before the throne in dashing attire. He was covered with a forest green robe, its pleated torso section contained crimps arranged into the shape of a Z. The royal gown had dark blue sleeves, covered in bright yellow sequins, which were arranged in intricate designs of the spiral galaxy—a built in map if you will. This impressive garment ended just under his knees. Never one to show much skin, dark blue trousers extended underneath the modest Zurg's short housecoat; the pants tucked into his long bright yellow boots, matching the gloves he wore over his metal hands. A dusky blue cape completed his outfit, swaying softly behind the emperor to be. He was ready for a fight._

"_Zadok Ubel __Re`uven____Gaara," his father hissed, "have you completely lost it?"_

"_That depends on your definition, Fajer," the younger Zurg sassed in reply. "If you mean, have I lost my rose-colored glasses, becoming disillusions, then yes, I have lost that ridiculous eyewear." _

"_You have lost your MIND," his father's claws dug into the armrests, causing a large screeching sound to be emitted from the blameless chair. "You dare go against the race of Winter Winds? The Zephyrs?"_

"_You act as if I just woke up one day and decided to fight back against tyranny, because there was nothing better to do!" Zurg's chest heaved up and down; his arms quivered with antagonism. _

"_You'd be signing your own execution papers," his father tried to instill just an ounce of self-preservation in his altruistic son._

"_iBetter to die with honor, than to lose it for immortality./i"_

"_You'd also bring unneeded hostilities towards your own people," Fajer cautioned._

"_Do you honestly believe the Zephyrs won't bring wanton destruction to our kind after they've assumed enough power? They'd just let us go along our merry ways? Those blights upon the universe leech from other planets, demolished other less advanced cultures, and enslaved thousands of different races, bringing the survivors to this little niche of the universe to serve as slaves for the rest of their days! What makes you think that they'd spare us?"_

"_We are not lesser beings, Za," Fajer felt as if they'd rehearsed this speech dozens of times before. "The Zephyrs can't touch us."_

"_Even if they couldn't touch us," Zurg posed a hypothetical question, "isn't it our duty to defend those who cannot aid themselves? We are the enlightened elite, and must stand against chaos, and instead bring in a reign of order?" Zurg strolled around the throne, "And besides, weren't we once just the same as them at one point, evolving from atoms and molecules that collided into each other? We are all equal, formed through the same process of chance."_

"_Some more equal than others," Fajer sneered. _

"_But father," Zurg strived for his stubborn old man to understand, "even though you refuse to believe that we should go out of our way to help the cause of freedom, even as you believe our society has progressed enough to withstand the millennias ahead, you are forgetting one thing; the Zephyr are advancing exponentially, beyond our wildest dreams. Their level of technological advancement is mindboggling to say the least, already on par with our own. Even more disturbing is the fact that they've only been around for a few measly centuries, while our kind has been around for eons."_

"_What's the matter?" Fajer jeered. "Can't handle a little scholastic competition?"_

"_It's not their dense neurons that I'm worried about," Zurg sighed. "It's their ambition Why, I wouldn't be surprised if they were already perfecting their plan to enslave all us Zeniths!"_

"_They will do us no harm," Fajer remained adamant._

"_How can you be so sure?" Zurg questioned his judgment._

"_Because we are much better than those animals you call 'equals,'" his father sneered. "They deserved to be cast into bondage. Let the backwards species do something useful for once in their short pathetic lives."  
"Are they the animals, or are you?" Zurg bellowed, his deep voice resounding down the halls._

_Zurg's father jumped from his chair, landing in front of his son, cracking the metal plating underneath his feet. "You can crawl under a hole and die for all I care." _

"_How pleasant," Zurg pushed his father. "They should post that on a greeting card."_

"_Get out," he quietly commanded his only son, the heir to his throne. _

"_The very same words you said to mother," Zurg concealed his fear behind a fog of smugness. "Why am I not surprised?"_

"_GET OOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUTTT!" Fajer bellowed, slapping Zurg across the face with his own staff of power, snapping the pole in two. _

_And so Zurg, the exiled prince, shambled out of the palace; with silver blood dripping down the large gash across his skull, and bright yellow laser beams—originating from his heartless gaze—inflicting third-degree burns on weary legs._

_Za was too numb to notice…too numb to care. _

Zurg crumpled to the ground, as if those terrible wounds were performed once more on his body. Pain radiated through his cranium, giving him the worst migraine of his life.

And so he wept, heaving deep silent sobs, for the lost love of his father, for the isolation he felt, as a foreigner in an unkind land, not wishing for anyone, even Miles, to notice him at his most vulnerable point. Golden tears slid down his cheeks.

"**And they say I'm the monster**."


	5. Artist

_Hiedi ho  
Here we go  
No solution  
Strong undertow _

Little darling  
Welcome to the show  
You're a failure  
Played in stereo  
Straight to Video~Mindless Self Indulgence

Warp Darkmatter entered the brig. He was wearing his usual working clothes, with the glossy metal outlining his massive torso, emphasizing the huge mass of muscles underneath. The only difference was that instead of the flashy metal arm equipped with an apparently limitless number of blasters, he wore an older prototype that looked as if skin was peeled off a silver arm, revealing the rods of bone and pulley systems in place of muscle. Even though it only came outfitted with five curved claws, it looked all the more sinister.

The blue minion descended down the halls until he came across Team Lightyear. It had been only a few days since they were captured, but they looked awful.

Booster lost a lot of weight, giving a hollow look to his pallid face. His metabolism was so high, that it justified the vast amount of food he usually gobbled down on an hourly basis. Without the level of nourishment he was used to, the poor simple farm boy was wasting away.

As for XR, well, he was just a head; a sulking bodiless head. It couldn't get much worse for him.

Mira was in pretty bad shape as well. Her scorched hair was still sticking up in frizzed clumps, from a combination of fear and electrocution. The most alarming thing about her features were here eyes, a little dimmer, as she worried about Buzz. He hadn't uttered a word since Zurg nearly took his head off.

And Buzz Lightyear, the symbol of justice, looked the worst of them all. Without his shaving kit, a dark blue beard grew haphazardly under his nose, cutting out of his face like spikes. Dark bags circled under his eyes, making his already large ocular units seemed twice their normal size. But the pupils weren't dilated with tears, or struggling to cool a heated anger; they were vacant of any flicker of sanguinity. It was almost as if they were dead.

"Single file line," Warp instructed the rangers to comply with his master's wishes. It would do them no good to fight back. The lasers were already removed, the jetpacks were torn off their backs, and their oxygen tank was punctured, leaving them to suffocate if they so much as dared to stumble out of the Dreadnaught.

Warp slapped energy handcuffs onto each of their hands, save for XR. For him, one of the old hornets grabbed his head, muffling his cries of the indignity of the situation. The upgraded droids would have only electrocuted them, and it would not look good if Zurg turned over a fried ranger. That would start an all-out intergalactic war.

"Jeez, Buzz, you look like you could use a break," Warp whistled. "Or at least some shaving cream. I suggest Z a lisse. The purple oaf is a whiz at personal hygiene products. He even has his own line of shampoos, and he doesn't even have hair!"

The team remained quiet.

"Oh come on," Warp muttered in frustration, "at least show some reaction! You could have turned that into a wisecrack in so many different ways." While leading the rangers in shackles towards the exit, he mumbled, "You're sucking the fun out of prisoner exchanges."

"What are we supposed to say?" finally squirmed high enough out of the hornet's grip to free his mouth. "'Thanks for the laughs while we bow our heads in humiliation? It made us totally forget how we suffered a defeat for the first time since…well I can't even remember a previous time when we lost!'"

"XR," Booster found the bright side of the situation, "at least we're still alive."

"Only to die of shame," XR's high-pitched voice whined.

"Pipe down," Mira hushed them. "We're still the great rangers we've always been. So we had a little mishap on the way. Big deal. Zurg must have lost 467 times already, and you don't see ihim/i complaining."

"468," XR couldn't resist correcting her.

"If I wasn't tied up at the moment, I would so strangle you," Mira grumbled.

"I'd like to see you try," he jeered. "I don't have a neck!"

Buzz just continued gazing off into the distance, looking for something, anything, to heal his wounded pride. He wasn't succeeding.

Warp stared quizzically at the detainees. "These are the great 'defenders of truth' that we lost to all those times? You guys are so dysfunctional; I can't fathom how you managed to pull off so many wins."

"Justice always prevails," Buzz was brought back to his senses. Defending his team was a reflex he had developed over the years. Those three had become like family to him, even if he tried not to show it, hiding behind his rules and regulations.

"As you can plainly see," Warp gestured with a rotation of his mechanical hand as they marched on towards the docking bay, "it doesn't."  
The gleam of light reflecting from Warp's shiny arm momentarily blinded Buzz. "What's that, a new look for you? I thought that old arm was attached to your body."

"You know me; I'm always on the lookout for the hottest style," Warp made an anxious laugh.

Mira's eyes narrowed, "Or your employer ripped it off of your hinges, but that doesn't sound nearly so pleasant, does it?"

"I hate Tangeans_…mutter…rant…grumble…"_ Warp cursed incoherent swearwords.

"This wouldn't have happened to you if you allied yourself with all that is noble and decent," Buzz lectured. It seemed that Warp's proof that evil only led to pain healed Buzz's wounded ego.

"I'd rather be on the winning side than sitting on the bleachers," Warp shot down Buzz's growing self-worth again.

The odd looking group marched the rest of the way in an awkward silence.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, what is that joyous sound greeting my horns?" Zurg was ecstatic. "Ah yes, the sound of my prisoners unwieldy shuffling out of my ship onto the Star Command docks below. It's even better than I imagined!"

Zurg strolled out behind the squad, with his eyes radiating waves of hoity-toity delight, like a vulture eying some fresh corpses just within its reach, "How I do love this day!"

XR's eyes swiveled around for a double take. "Is that gold chipping off your face?" He noticed the substance stuck to the corner of Zurg's left eye.

Zurg quickly scrapped it off. "It's nothing but golden paint," he lied. "I was renovating my suite before a grub so rudely interrupted me from my artistry. You can't expect me to use the cheap products that inferior brutes use. I only use the finest of colors in the universe, with platinum, silver, liquefied purple gemstones, and mercury dotting my color palette."

Mira rolled her eyes. Zurg was sure flamboyant enough to be an artist.

Buzz twirled around—another reflex—and gaped at the emperor. How had he not managed to detect Zurg's presence? Was his ranger sense really fading away?

"Yes, Lightyear," the emperor gloated, "I know that my presence can be quite intoxicating, but hasn't your mother ever told you that it's not polite to stare?"

Buzz seethed with anger, "She's dead because of you. They're all dead."

"Well what did you expect, Buzzy boy?" Zurg twisted around Lightyear, striking what he thought was a deliciously evil pose, with his eyes inspecting his cuticles that suddenly got so much more interesting than Lightyear's tirade, cape fluttering behind him. "I am an evil overlord after all. So some little people get crushed along the way for my great empire to rise from the ashes; it's not that big a deal."

"Not that big a deal. NOT THAT BIG A DEAL?" Buzz's level of ferocity startled Zurg out of his ostentatious display of indifference.

"I'll tell you what doesn't matter," Buzz's voice grew harsh. "You don't matter. No matter what you do, no matter where you go, you'll always be alone, doomed to die a thousand deaths before you actually pass on," the insightful thought Buzz collected over the years rang out of him in one outburst. "I curse the day that you were born."

A wave of pain spread across his purple face for the briefest moment, before he resurrected his glitzy masquerade, laughing fanatically.

"What's so funny?" Buzz was sharp enough to notice the sudden mood change. _Had the self-proclaimed ruler of the universe gone truly mad?_

Zurg's voice dropped into a serious tone, "We finally agree on something."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The transfer was quick and painless. The three heavily decorated cadets and their leader were placed back inside Star Command's walls, as the Dreadnaught sped off into deep space, leaving behind the opportunity to attack the space station while the heroes were chained.

But the four exhausted officers of the law were not assimilated into their normal life so easily. The LGMs put them through a series of tests, making sure that Zurg didn't have some dastardly trick up his gauntlets, drawing their blood for laboratory analysis (which caused Booster to faint), combing through the rangers tattered suits and scanning their entire bodies for any traces of drugs, altered brain wave patterns, or hidden bugs that could tap into their mainframe and download all of Star Command's codes.

After the lengthy proceedings, they were finally released with full privileges among the other rangers.

XR muttered, "If I EVER have to go through that again, I swear I'll blow myself up and reassemble the pieces back together!"

Mira scorned him, "You're just upset because they went through all of your memory files and found out about your…_ahem_…distasteful hobbies."

"That was a violation of section Y subsection beta, paragraph two," Buzz noted. "The one where rangers are not supposed to touch the evidence, lest they tamper with it. Now we can't use those films against Warp in a court of law, if he ever gets arrested."

"I swear I was only looking through that confiscated stuff to see if Warp had any hidden messages inserted into those tapes!" XR fibbed. "For all we know, he has a coded message in those seedy films from the Big Z himself!"

"Uh-huh, _riiiiiight_," Mira emphasized how little she believed in him. "Something tells me that Zurg isn't _that_ kind of horny. Cooties, remember?"

"I believe you buddy," Booster came to XR's side. "So what were the movies about anyway?"

"Disney Channel! National Geographic!" Mira and XR shouted two different shows at the same time, while Buzz turned redder than Booster, who only grew more confused

"I...uh…mean National Geographic's tribute to how Disney cartoons have changed the world, making people swoon over certain robotic characters," XR puffed up his chest.

"Yeah, Nos-4-A2 was quite popular, wasn't he," Mira damaged his daydream.

XR started freaking out, mumbling, _don't hurt me master, I'll behave, I taste like I just came from the junkyard, why did robots have to be programmed with nerve endings_, and _get those chompers away from me_ before an even more disturbing thought surfaced to his mind, "What, do YOU see something in that glorified leech?" The poor little robot looked horrified.

"XR," Mira groaned. "I'm just teasing you. Craters, it's like talking to a kid! A niggling testosterone driven kid!"

"Says you," XR crossed his arms with disdain before a cheerfulness shone through his eyes, "YAY! I have arms! And my adorable body! Oh, how I've missed these appendages…" he hugged himself tightly.

The pudgier Booster sighed, satisfied that the whole ordeal was over, "I'm just so glad to be allowed back into the mess hall, to get hot meals again. I don't think I could handle another day of eating toothpaste."

Buzz commented, "It was the standard protein and vitamin reinforced freeze dried nourishment used for rangers without kitchen appliances or stranded in the vast void of space, as the stuff doesn't have an expiration date."

Booster mumbled, "But it still tasted like toothpaste."

Mira cracked a smile at Booster's comment, leading Buzz to raise a questioning eyebrow in reply.

"What?" Mira asked Buzz. "He's got a point."

While watching the pleasant exchange between the two, XR smugly grinned, directing the smile towards Mira and Buzz.

"Yes?" they both questioned the little tin can in unison.

"It's just good to have things back to the way they were. That's all," XR wrung his hands behind his back. He was just glad that Buzz's bout of depression was over.

"Speaking of Zurg…" Buzz changed the flow of the conversation for the worse.

"No one was even _talking_ about him," Mira groaned.

XR retracted his previous statement, "Maybe emo Buzz was better. HE didn't rave so much."

"As I was saying," Buzz tried to quell their protests, "did something seem off?"

"Something sure did," XR agreed, "he's no painter! If he was, we would have seen pieces of his artwork by now."  
"He could have submitted them anonymously to the museum," Booster offered another perspective.

"Then we would have noticed it since the rusty gear would have made it purple and decorated it with yellow Z's _everywhere_. I'm telling you, that guy needs to change his look. The whole 'evil color scheme' is so over done, along with his played out black and red cape."

Mira hated to agree with XR, but she did anyway, "Zurg does go a tad overboard with those shades."

XR continued his fantasy, "Now if it was _meeee_, I'd get a flashy bright green cape to accentuate my chiseled features." He grinned, "I'd look so dashing and brave, ready to rescue many damsels in distress, and their numbers also."

"You are not getting a cape," Buzz stated. "I don't care how many times you ask."

"You're just biased against them," XR turned away.

"Maybe that's because our arch nemesis wears one!" Buzz blew some steam. He rubbed his forehead as he calmed down, "But that's not what was bothering me. Does he seem more serious to you? More violent?"

"Maybe it's his time of the month," XR shrugged his shoulders.

His two mature organic friends forgot how to breathe.

Booster gave up trying to understand the situation.

"Isn't it obvious?" XR inquired. "Sure, he has a masculine form, but the guy wears a skirt, loves the color purple, is sensitive to the point of insanity, and has been going through mood swings. Haven't you ever considered the possibility that he's a hermaphrodite?"

"My arch nemesis is not part girl!" Buzz shook. The thought was so unnerving. He wrestled with the guy before, even catching Zurg's in his arms bridal style, when they both teamed up to take down the Heed! If Zurg really turned out to have some feminine features…Buzz needed a shower. Fast.

Booster now understood the situation. Innocence crushed, he promptly tried to hold down his lunch.

"Think about it this way," XR continued, "why is he so interested in you Buzz? Maybe there's a lady in there who just finds you irresistible. You do seem to attract female villains, like Gravatina, so why is a half-and-half any different?"

Mira yelled, "XR! Now I have unwanted mental images permanently seared into my brain! We can't just delete data like you can!" She had a horrendous vision involving Zurg in a pink frilly dress, with red lipstick, and oh dear cosmos, making out with Buzz! The horror!

"Well iexcuse me/i for asking a very clever question," XR felt that his points were valid. The robot was being uncannily bright today

"Uuggrrmmpphhh," Buzz looked like he was physically ill. "No, no," Buzz did not accept XR's insidious ideas. "He can't be." Buzz was grasping at straws by this point, "Didn't he go on a date with Vicki Vortex?"

"It was one date," XR retorted, "and Zurg has never shown anyone what he looks like underneath that armor. He probably just asked her out to hide the fact that even his DNA's gender confused."

Buzz turned a whole new shade of green.

"XR, noooo!" Mira felt like banging her head against the nearest wall, if only to erase the past five minutes. "Stop sickening us with your logic!"

Booster ran into the nearest stall.

"And what if he's a robot?" Buzz tried desperately to convince XR to forgo his theory.

"Oh, he's no robot," XR shook his head. "A robot would NOT create an energy vampire!" XR shuddered, "You obviously don't know how painful one of their bites can be."

"It's more believable than what you're suggesting," Buzz scoffed.

XR proposed, "If you really can't handle that theory, he could be a homosexual in costume."

This time it was Mira's turn to shake her head, "The neat freak can cry tears from his eyes, and he turned into that green glob thing after smelling that green mist that made Buzz and I turn into ugly amoeba-like things. That mist did not affect metal or suits, but it affected his, which leads you to believe that it's no suit at all, but skin."

Booster finally emerged from the bathroom. He weakly murmured, "Food does NOT taste better the second time around."

"So that settles it," XR waved his hands in the air. "He's an androgynous alien!"

"Wait one moment!" Mira shouted. "If he is an alien, the roles of their genders could be different than ours, so he could just be a normal guy where he comes from."

"Or he could be a really ugly female alien," XR concluded. "No wonder the poor guy—I mean girl's evil! She tries to take over the galaxy to make up for her distorted properties!"

Nausea forgotten, Buzz stopped the conversation before it could get any worse, "No matter what Zurg really is, he is, without a doubt, 100% male, and there is NOTHING you can say to make me change my mind!" He used a little leeway he gained over the years, "Besides, I'm the one who always hones in on his schemes, so I believe that I'd know if he was a girl or not!"

"Wanna make a bet?" XR felt that the odds were in his favor.

"Gambling is strictly forbidden, XR. As a space ranger, we must uphold values, as it says in section T subsection—" Buzz's raving was cut off.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," XR waved him off. "If you're too chicken, I won't make you. I'll go see if Rocket Crocket wants a piece of the action. He's always good for his money."

And so XR sped away, looking to make a quick unibuck.

"Buzz?" Mira wondered if his dense brain could handle such disturbing possibilities.

"Buzz, are you—"

"I need to lie down," Buzz stated.

"I'll lead you to your room," Mira supported his arm.

"Take a paper bag with you," Booster offered helpful advice, "just in case."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"WHAT?" Buzz was livid. His team cowered behind him in the briefing room as their leader learned that Star Command actually complied with all of Zurg's wishes.

Commander Nebula groaned, "You know as well as I that we have to uphold our end of the bargain.

"But you're taking away ALL ships that surround Planet X?"

"Surrounded," he stressed the past tense.

"But that's exactly what Zurg wants you to do! You're playing right into his trap!"

"No we aren't," Nebula sighed, "Zurg never does anything too obvious. He must have wanted us to spend up our limited resources guarding the barren planet, while he plans some attack on our base or Capital Planet. Heck, he may just want to stress us out while he goes beachside!"

"That's what's so diabolical about his plan," Buzz commented. "He is going through with the transparent schemes because he knows we think it's too obvious for him to do, so it is the exact opposite of a truly obvious course of action for him to take, namely one he is doing this very instant. Isn't that clear?"

"Did you follow any of that?" Booster whispered to XR.

"Not a word," the metal bot responded.

"You are my top ranger, and have pulled off amazing missions over the years," their commanding officer tried to put it as gently as he could, "but your judgment has not been perfect as of late, and Madame President will not allow us to leave the citizens unguarded just because you think that something is going on in a desert wasteland. We are transporting all ships to reinforce a barricade around the usual targets. And that goes double for the shrimp puff plant. Poor thing's been attacked so many times that it looks more like a Swiss cheese factory."

"You just have to trust me on this!" Buzz slammed his fist so hard on Nebula's table, that it startled the machine, which bucked all Nebula's carefully arranged paperwork—along with his mug of iced tea—crashing against the wall, dissolving weeks of work.

"I'll give you ten seconds to get out of my office before I force you to redo all those forms," Nebula wasn't kidding.

"But sir," the guilty man pleaded.

"That's _it_!" Nebula reprimanded Lightyear. "You are hereby suspended from duty for the remainder of Zurg's vacation!"

"That's not fair!" Buzz didn't know what he would do with himself. Star Command was his life.

"I expect you to turn in your suit by 0500 in the locker room," Nebula grounded his teeth as he started picking up the pile of soaking wet papers on the floor. "LGMS! Get that fax machine XL in here to help clean up this mess I know you were eavesdropping behind the door the whole time."

"_Noooooooo we weeeeeeeren't_," the little green men answered in harmony before realizing the error of their ways. "_Craaaaaaaaterssssss_."

"But pop," XR pleaded, "we need him, cracked as he may be."

Booster whined, "He's a hero! He deserves to stay here, with us, fighting evil: saving lives."

"Couldn't you let him off with a warning or something?" Mira offered.

"No," Nebula acidly responded. "I've cut him too much slack over the years. He needs to be brought in line and respect his place."

"Buzz?" Booster called after his fallen leader.

"You can have my suit right now, you blind old man," Buzz ripped off his suit and threw it across Nebula's feet, revealing his purple and puce one-piece suit underneath.

"That's disrespect right there!" Nebula was outraged. "That's two extra days of traffic duty for you when you get back."

"Who says I'm coming back," Buzz trudged out of the room, leaving behind a worried team, a surprised commander, and a shattered dream.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zurg was wearing a different styled outfit for the first time in decades. He couldn't very well wander around the inside of tombs in his battle armor. Instead, he wore long khaki pants, russet boots that reached to his mid-calf, thick brown leather gloves, and a safari shirt with long sleeves. A hard beige helmet titled sideway on his head, with two holes cut out for his horns, and the flat rim extending far out into the sides. His purple face contorted in agony.

"I can't believe I'm going to step out in public looking like some animal trainer with his own two-bit shtick about protecting wildlife!" he hid his face in his leather covered hands. "If Mama Zurg saw this, she'd have a fit."

"Relax Z," Warp tried to stifle his laughs, and conceal his surprise that the guy actually had legs, "No one can see you down there. It's deserted. And besides," he slyly smiled, "I took care of those news cameras and other such spy equipment down personally."

"You blew them up, didn't you?" Zurg looked at Warp with half-closed eyes showing his lack of doubt.

"Is there any other way?" Warp shrugged his shoulders.

"You better not have damaged anything," Zurg warned, with his voice growing into a crescendo.

"Don't worry, I was extra careful with the sticks of dynamite," Warp rolled his eyes. After fidgeting for a while, he carefully inserted one of the questions that had been burning at the back of his mind since the failed party into the conversation, hoping to sound more casual than impatient, "So, what are you after anyway Z?"

Zurg sighed, expanding his yellow mouth even more than usual. He just knew Warp was going to question his actions sooner or later. It's just that the evil emperor would have preferred later. "It's personal."

"How can it be?" Warp was confused. "No one's been on that dust ball in ages!"

"What better place to hide unwanted memories," Zurg digressed to Darkmatter. The blue bumbling idiot was loyal, and he deserved to know that much. After seeing the uncertainty evident in Warp's face, Zurg continued, "I had a past before I became an evil emperor, and hopefully, I'll have a future after it. I have to retire sometime, no?"

"And here I thought being an emperor was a lifetime gig," Warp was bemused.

"Not if you exist for an eternity," Zurg muttered so softly, Warp barely registered that he spoke.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Buzz returned to his house in the calm suburbs of Capital planet. He felt much more at ease in Star Command, fighting crime with his friends, but that was to be expected. He hadn't visited the place in ages. The hedges were overgrown, starting to twin their invading branches into the neighboring lawns, the windows were dusty and cold, and the door looked like it could use a fresh coat of paint. "This is no home," Buzz sadly acknowledged, as he ambled through the lonely path up to the structure, inspired by Star Command's colors of green and white. "I lost that many years ago."

He absentmindedly wiped his feet on the welcome mat, which had to be blue with the logo of Star Command printed across its fuzzy surface. "I should get that replaced," Buzz made a mental note before entering into the building.

The inside of the house was even more uninviting than the outside. The place didn't even look lived in! Everything was too neat, too orderly, too dusty; dead.

The living room was in the shape of a rectangle. A holo-vision screen hovered a few feet in the air, in front of a stiff dark green couch. Its cushions were starched to the point of imitating rock. Just in front of the uncomfortable upholstery was white coffee table; smooth, plain, and without any signs of use—not a scratch in sight. "That's to be expected," Buzz grumbled, as he sped up the green stairs, through white hallways, until he reached his bedroom. If he thought that the living room wasn't homey, his private chambers were downright alien.

The room was akin to a hotel suite, with a wide expanse, a lack of holograms of family or friends, barely any furniture, and the faint odor of fabric softener settling across the ground. His plain beige bed remained unused, untouched, since whenever he did crash here, he slept on the coach instead of this big foreboding realm of recluse.

"I'm not going to stay here for long," Buzz decided, running over to his closet, practically tearing the door off its hinges with his eagerness to leave the area as soon as possible. He sifted through some extra outfits he had ordered, which were exact replicas of his Star Command getup, until he reached his bulky old-fashioned space suit, constructed in the days before the academy. It was orange, baggy, and had arms that could stretch out great lengths, which would have been more useful if it wasn't so floppy. It also had all manners of buttons connected to gizmos that Buzz never bothered to learn. "Why didn't I read the instruction manual," Buzz grumbled before realizing, "oh yeah, Zurg vaporized it."

Buzz hopped inside it, looking more like an orange clown than the space ranger extraordinaire.

"At least no one will recognize me in this, save for Warp, but I'm not going after him this time," the gears in Buzz's head turned for the first time in a long time, creating a plan instead of mindlessly following orders for once.

He made sure to grab an extra laser gun, _Gamma Ray 209 Edition,_ that he had stored in an iron box hidden behind his large mound of uniforms. The weapon's barrel was sleek, with sickly red paint gleaming over its rounded surface. Its trigger was just itching to be used. "It's time that Zurg atoned for his actions, and if I have to become a vigilante in order to make him pay for his misdeeds, then so be it."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	6. Hallowed Grounds

Fate - monstrous  
and empty,  
you whirling wheel,  
you are malevolent,  
well-being is vain  
and always fades to nothing,  
shadowed  
and veiled  
you plague me too;  
now through the game  
I bring my bare back  
to your villainy.  
~O Fortuna translated

Brain pod 29 rolled around in terror. His black and purple paint job did not flatter his bulky machinery, designed to quiver in terror, not to flee. The scared stiff brain was thinking so hard, that the nutritive juice cushioning his brain started to fizz.

"_Ohnohnohnohnohnohnohno_…"

Why did he always have to pick the short straw?

All around him grubs, in their tight red spandex uniforms, and other brain pods, silently grateful that it was him rather than them who was sentenced to an abysmal fate, gathered to wish him off.

One of the shiftier grubs smiled, "I'm just glad it wasn't me." As soon as he moved his arms to wipe the beads of sweat off his forehead, many longs straws fell out of his sleeves, clattering on the ground.

"You little cheater…." 29 was ready to murder him, but that particular grub scampered off too quickly.

"It was nice knowing you, as nice as anything on Planet Z can be anyway," a different grub patted 29's shoulder pads. Even though he couldn't feel it through the metal, it was still a nice gesture. Then 29 remembered that grubs seldom bathed, and this one was in charge of the sanitary department…By this point 29 was glad he didn't have a stomach; otherwise he would have vomited all over the little insect, who disturbingly would take it as an early Christmas present, which would have only caused the poor brain to vomit again.

"You worked efficiently while you were here," the more logical number 47 tried to compliment him, "save for all the comments on the side, and when you asked for a raise that one time when our evil eminence used the Uni-mind in an attempt to rule the universe, and the time you..." 47 failed to cheer up 29, droning on and on about 29's lapses in judgment.

"I guess I'll be moved up to number 29. SCORE!" the insensitive pod 28 rejoiced.

"Gee, thanks," 29 stated sarcastically, silently wishing that glares could kill.

"Can I have your stuff?" a chipper grub asked.

"What stu—oh," realization dawned upon the sickened pod, who was covering the front of his jar with his grey claws, "you mean the congealed remnants of the mutant manure from my last project, sure to transform any vegetable or fruit into destructive brutes?"

"If you mean stinky piles of yum, then yes," the grub agreed.

"_Little stinkin' bugger_," 29 thought to himself, as he sighed, "Go past the hanger, down the hall of rejected machines, past the photos of Zurg making a peace sign next to his dejected prisoners, where you'll come across the locker room. It's painted loganberry. My capsule is the same as my number."

"Which is—" this grub wasn't particularly bright. None of them truly were, but they were good at following the blueprints that the brain pods crafted, and loyally following Zurg's instructions, as crazy as they may be.

"29," he groaned. "The thing is carved onto my front!"

"You didn't have to yell," the grub mumbled, moving his little greenish foot in a saddened circle on the ground.

"I'm sorry," 29 literally felt some of his brain cells snap from this stupidity. "I'm just a little stressed is all. To be expected, after the Evil one commissioned me to his recent…project."

"Yes, to be alone with Zurg, stranded on the bleak Planet X, trapped inside of some tomb no doubt riddled with booby traps; the sole sentient life form for the purple one to take out his anger on…" 28 shivered, "No one to hear your cries."

That comment caused 29 to go into hysterics again. His arms were waving in the air, as he rolled in a jerky patter around the room, "_Whymewhymewhymewhyme_?"

47 chided 28, pointing an accusing claw at him, "You just had to go and do that, didn't you, setting 29 off into an episode."

"Better to freak out among us than with the Purple blowhard himself," 28 noted.

Zurg's obnoxiously loud voice came echoing down the hall, with sound waves crashing so hard against his employees, that the grubs grabbed their antennae in pain, trying to pull them out of their heads, and some of the brain pods' bulletproof glass cracked.

"**NUMBER 29**!" Zurg's bellows rang out through the halls. "Get your wrinkled mass of pickled puss over here this _**instant**_!"

29's brain froze in terror, as if all his nerves just shriveled upon hearing those dreaded words.

"Run along now, before he thinks of even more devious methods to incinerate you!" 47 pushed 29 through the halls and towards the hangar bay. 29's arms trailed limply besides his body.

"That was awkward," 28 swerved his jar around, his crane-like neck stretched out a little closer to the grub, after making certain that the room wasn't bugged. "In any case, have you heard the rumor going around about our evil emperor's gender?"

"Maybe," the grub's eyes squinted at the pod with scrutiny, unsure if this was a trap. "Maybe not."

"Care to place a wager?" 28 offered to cut the grub into the action.  
"NOOOOO!" the grub yelled; eyes wide with fear. "You can't make me bets my green glop. Is _miiiiiiiiiiine_!" he scampered away, running down the halls with a blinding speed to reach 29's locker before any other grub got a whiff of the news.

* * *

Zurg sat stiffly in his violet chair, situated in a much smaller vessel than usual. Its surface was entirely coated in black glossy paint, with two spikes jutting out of the wings, mirroring the ones on Zurg's armor. The glass screens were tinted black as well, so even if people peered into the strange vessel, they wouldn't be able to recognize the lilac interior and its even more mauve pilot.

His shoulders were hunched slightly, due to the curvature of the ceiling, and the fact that this ship was half the size of Star Command's ships—the green and white eyesores looking more like blimps than spaceships, but that was the LGMs fault. Everything had to be compressed inside this ship to enhance speed and agility, and to store at least one gigantic ion blaster that could pop out at any time.

The Evil Emperor needed to be stealthier. He just knew that Lightyear would defy Nebula's orders and chase after him, and the man with a cleft much too big would be too busy scanning the skies for the Dreadnaught to notice a sleek black vehicle passing him by, as long as Buzz didn't notice the bumper sticker that Zurg just had to paste on this bad boy, _**Zurgz#1**_, in bright yellow letters. In his defense, at least it wasn't purple.

"29, get your sorry engine over here before I decide to use your precious brain as my own personal stress ball! I don't have to tell you how easily I get tensed!" Zurg stuck his head out of the side window, shaking his fist angrily into the crimson red docking bay.

"Coming Heinous One," 29 barely put the brakes on in time to avoid colliding into the newly detailed ship. The last thing he wanted to do was to scratch Zurg's precious ship, or, did he dare think it, cause a dent in its polished side.

"Heinous One, I like that," the emperor smiled, showing off his glistening teeth. "I like that a lot." Then he snapped back to his malicious senses. "What took you so long?" Zurg grew irritated. "You know I don't like to be kept waiting."

"I apologize, my Illustrious Overlord," the brain pod struggled to bow within the cramped quarters, "but I was just double checking my data, to be sure that everything was up to date, with the latest in ancient hieroglyphic translation technology." The brain pod took a bright yellow square data pad, with the best code cracking hardware that money could buy, or intimidate into being made anyway.

"Does that mean that you took a chance at leaving the inspection of your information to the last second, knowing that if there was a flaw, we'd be trapped with faulty equipment on Planet X, wasting my short time of being 'untouchable?'" his voice rose well above the level of a jet plane breaking the sonic barrier.

"Nuh-nu-nu-no," 29 stammered, "of c-c-course not, my liege. D-did I say double checking? I meant triple. Nothing is too g-g-"

"_Spit it OUT already_!" Zurg bellowed.

"—good for my emperor," 29 could have had a seizure right then and there.

"Use my full title!" Zurg stared into 29's eyeballs, allowing the puny weakling to see his corneas start to glow with heat. Some sizzling sparks of energy were building up at the corners of his eyes

"Yes, Evil Emperor Zurg, soon to be ruler of the entire Galactic Alliance!" 29 yelped in less than five seconds.

"That's more like it," Zurg turned around in his seat, staring at the clear path to his new conquest.

After a few moments of awkward silence, as Zurg was checking each of the yellow and red scanners to be sure that this ship was ready to fly, with no maintenance issues along the way (since he didn't trust the grubs' inspection. Not since that last time where they 'checked' his ice blaster, and it only shot out bubbles), 29 dared to speak again.

"If I may ask, Zurg," 29's curious mind forced him to make this thought aloud, even if it would be signing his own death warrant, "what if _HE_ comes along for the ride. You don't have your vast supply of hornets, or Warp, or a large getaway ship; just you, me, and this craft built for speed, not war." To his surprise, Zurg did not sound vexed in the slightest. Rather, he seemed giddy.

"Oh, don't worry about Lightyear," he chuckled good-naturedly for once. "I took care of him."  
Now 29's eyes went wide with awe.

"Do you mean you terminated him?"

"Of course NOT," Zurg would have hit the fool, but he was too busy staring at the Milky Way. "That wouldn't have been fun at all; not when I can't watch."

Zurg continued flipping multiple switches, pressing purple buttons that were slightly different shades of lavender. The engine hummed in apprehension. Zurg gripped tightly onto the coal black steering wheel, a little too tightly, with a sinister smile sprawled across his face.

"Uh, Evil Emperor?" 29 questioned. "I've never actually seen you pilot a ship before, save for that Tangean one driven by thoughts. Usually it's one of the lackey's job."

Zurg's smile grew wider.

"Please tell me you have a license," 29 wailed.

The mouth expanded so far, that there was more yellow than purple on his face.

"Cosmos no," he grew more alarmed. "Don't _tell_ me that it's your first time behind the wheel!"

"Fine, I won't say anything," Zurg laughed as they zoomed through the red sky at startling speeds, zigzagging around and over his buildings; the twisting spires that made things more difficult. The jerky movements thrust even the heavy Zurg back into his seat, as poor 29 crashed against the wall, arms floundering uselessly in the air.

"I'm going to die," 29 cried, "in a crash site no less. All the experiments I've left undone, the wires I've never plugged in, the…okay, does my life suck that much?"

"Oh pipe down back there," Zurg sadistically grinned. "You wouldn't want to distract me from my driving now would you?" That caused 29 to shut up in a hurry.

Zurg gripped the wheel even tighter, with a childish glee. The result? It snapped in half, in a clean break. "That can't be good," Zurg said, eyeing one broken piece to the other.

"Does that mean we'll turn around?" 29 prayed to the Programmer in the stars.

"Not in the least," Zurg enlightened 29, while slamming his fist onto a large shiny red button. "Light speed and away!"

"And death is sure to follow," 29 considered these fitting final words.

* * *

The imperial ship descended onto the desert surface in a spiraling pattern, causing waves of sand to spin all around them, disturbed for the first time in thousands of years. Purple flaps extended out of the sides of the ship, slowing the descent, as the landing gear took care of the rest, creating so much friction that they managed to form glass skid marks on the dusty dunes. Zurg was the first one to hop out of the transport vehicle. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" he cheerfully spun around, certain that he was the best pilot who ever existed.

29 stumbled out of the ship, gripping his torso in distress. His eyes bulged as big as bowling balls, his once healthy pink cortex turned gray with fright, and his mechanical body was moving spastically, as some of his wires got damaged in his skirmish with death itself. A couple electric blue sparks shot out of his neck. "_No comment_," he moaned.

"Don't be such a baby," Zurg mocked his pain, as he danced across the surface. "Oh goodie! I'm here, Lightyear's humiliated, and I have proven once again my superiority to anyone and everyone in all things evil. MWAHHaHAhAaHAHhah RuhAHhAaahhaaa hahahaha ha…" He paused to wipe a happy clear blue tear from his eye, "I should have taken time off eons ago."

"I think I'd rather be clocking in extra hours," 29 wished that his frontal lobes weren't throbbing so much. During the venture into the vast void of space, his brain was jostled so hard, bumping from side to side within the jar, that purplish bruises formed on his cerebral cortex. "There goes ten years of intense studying at Zale Academy."

"Oh hush up," Zurg quieted the woozy brain pod. "You'll have plenty of chances to work overtime without any pay later, as long as you don't get on my nerves, but for now, it's time for our descent into the tombs of Anubis: the guardian of lost souls, the dead, orphans, and other such blithering matters. If you ask me, he should have been investing his time in Chaos. Much more profitable."

29's eyes narrowed in suspicion, "How did you know that? Last time I checked, you didn't understand half as much when you sent Warp down here to get Natron. You thought it would be a gun that turns people into pillars of salt."

"Maybe my _ignorance_ is all a façade. Did you ever think of that?" the emperor twirled around, with his colossal ion blaster aimed at 29's pain lobe, just inches from his protective jar. "Now, do you have any more idiotic questions?" Zurg hissed.

"No sir, none at all!" 29 backed away as quickly as his dented wheels would take him.

"That's Sir with a CAPITAL letter," a deep growl rose from his throat. "Say my name like you MEAN it, with all the fear vibrating from the depths of your scrawny hull!"

"No, SIR!" he quivered in dread, with his arms covering his fragile head. 29 shut his eyes expecting the worse. Broiled brains galore.

Zurg saw him twitch, normally an amusement for him, but his heart just wasn't into torturing helpless cronies today. "We'd best head over towards the temple."

"Oh, yes of course, master," 29 was confused as to why he was spared, but didn't dwell on the issue. "So, as long as you followed those coordinates I downloaded into the mainframe—"

"What coordinates?" Zurg's horns both tilted downwards. "I thought we were free styling."

29 smacked his glass covering with his clawed hands, suddenly wishing that the emperor already wasted him.

* * *

Buzz Lightyear finished testing out the functions of his baggy orange suit. "Note to self: everything seems to be functioning at 89%, with a few buttons not serving any purpose other than decoration, but the main tasks including air filtration, helmet, oxygen tank supply, fuel storage, are adequate. Unfortunately, there's no jet pack, as it was ripped off during the last run-in I had with the Chlorm, in that dissecting room with Darkmatter, but a ranger is more than the sum of their tools." Buzz added, "Hopefully that still applies to ex-rangers..."

He stepped outside of his less than friendly abode, across the artificial grass, quickly walking towards his personal space ship. It was also the same shade of putrid orange, with leather seats, some fuzzy blue dice hanging inside the convertible, and patches of paint flaking off its surface, revealing the chrome underneath. "Has it really been that long?" Buzz wondered to himself. The design was probably more antique than the monuments on Planet X itself, with a tan interior not complementing the horrendous paint job, but as Buzz was away for work most of the time, he never got the chance to purchase a new hovercraft, or even notice the bad condition of his old one for that matter; not when he could use old 42, but that was the real ancient history.

The man humbly thought, "At least it's better than nothing."

One of his neighbors, who always seemed to be trimming his hedges, waved over to Buzz. He was wearing a dark green shirt and matching hat, smiling that the hero he lived next to (which raised the property value of his estate) finally made a quick appearance.

"Hey there chief! Didn't know you were taking the day off. I thought you were too attached to your job to get away."

"I wouldn't necessarily call it 'time off,'" Buzz didn't feel like elaborating.

"Oh, I get it," the neighbor turned back to his hedges.

"You do?" Buzz questioned.

"Sure," the neighbor turned back to Buzz. "You're Star Command's ace in the hole, only dressed up in that blindingly awful attire so no one will recognize you, as you head off on a secret mission, tailing a super villain."

"_It wasn't such so ugly when I bought it,_" Buzz kept that thought to himself. His fashion sense had never been reliable, which is why the Star Command uniforms were so appealing to him.

"So, was I right, or was I right?" the neighbor looked as cocky as ever.

"That's classified information," the words popped right out of Lightyear's mouth.

"Sure thing chief," the neighbor went back to his war against weeds. "Whatever you say."

As Buzz prepared himself to board his 'unsightly' ship, yet another interruption plagued him. "Sweet Mother of Venus," Buzz shook his head. "When will this end?"

Unfortunately, the postal office doesn't take into consideration the mental health of their recipients. Just hand over the package, get the signature, and get out.

The plain white hover-truck parked by the end of Buzz's driveway, allowing the postal worker with wavy brown hair, a cheerful attitude, and a smile permanently burned onto his face to step out of his automotive and descend down the steps until he reached the famed intergalactic hero.

"Greetings Buzz," he grinned from ear to ear. "Somehow I just knew that you'd be in today."

"Hello there, fellow worker for the public's wellbeing," Buzz forced a smile back. "How do you know when I drop by? Even my ranger sense isn't that accurate."

"_Coughtrackingdeviceimplantedintoyourneckcough," _the mailman not so subtly hid the information.

"What?" Buzz didn't quite catch that.

"Oh nothing," the mailman sighed while he handed Buzz the forms on a mahogany clipboard. "Just a lucky guess."

Buzz eyed him skeptically.

"Besides, I always go by this street on my rounds, and when I see you out here, I deliver."

"That makes more sense," Buzz gave his signature grin so shiny, that you half-expect the teeth to sparkle with a tinkling sound. He neatly printed his name onto the blank lines below. "So who's this from?" Buzz inquired.

"Just some secret admirer." The mailman whistled, "Must have been your fiftieth one this month!"

"Actually, fifty-first," Buzz was dismayed. "Can't they pick someone i_else_/i to swoon over?"

"Not since you were named the universe's Hottest Hunk from Galactic Guy Magazine, and the most desired eligible bachelor as well."

"I thought Warp still held that title," Buzz mused over to himself.

"Yeah, but he was disqualified after the staff found out about his one night stand with the chief editor."

"Wow," Buzz blushed. That was something he did NOT want to know.

"Yeah, I feel bad for the woman's husband. Poor chap didn't see the signs."

Buzz handed over the completed papers to the civic worker. "Best wishes to him," Buzz said, as he grabbed the package, and nearly dropped it. The thing was _heavy_!

"Is there a whole city inside this or what!" Buzz groaned, as he carried the wooden crate back inside his house.

"I don't know, but tell me when you do find out!" the mailman reentered his vehicle and sped off to the next stop on his list.

Buzz stumbled inside his doorway, dropping the thing onto the coffee table in front of him. The white legs snapped under the weight of the hefty parcel, dropping the top of white slab and the box to the ground. "Craters," Buzz cursed. "Just what I need."

He fished a crowbar out from behind the front door just for this purpose, and pried the top of the lid off. "Let's see, what do we hav—" a green mist rose from the opened package, covering Lightyear in a puff of vile green smoke devoured him. "Nerve gas," he choked, holding his hands around his throat. "No, even worse," his eyes widened with horror, "it's Zurg's overpowering cologne, concentrated even! The fiend!" Buzz lost consciousness, falling to the floor with a loud crash.

* * *

Zurg looked at his violet Zolex, with yellow canary diamonds covering the whole wristband. "I'm guessing that Lightyear got his package," he chortled. "Take that Buzz, you predictable buffoon. Your mind is no match for my own. MWAHA HA ha ha—enough of that."

Zurg continued taking long strides to the east, where there were only hills of sand as far as the eye can see. He didn't seem perturbed by the fact that they had been walking for hours, without the aid of a map, as 29's schematics were only useful if they knew exactly what coordinates they started from to begin with.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" 29 was having trouble keeping up with his pace. The sand kept clogging his cogs, grating against his wheels, so that whenever he moved, it sounded like he was sawing his metal rods into dust.

"Are you questioning you're master?" Zurg asked into the biting air.

"You forgot _Evil_ master," 29 mumbled.

"_**ONLY I CAN correct others, you TWIT**_!" Zurg roared. His expression became the embodiment of ire.

"Alright, alright," 29 whimpered. "Just don't hurt me! I still have clones to feed."

"I feed all of you brains, you bawling sac of stem cells," Zurg sneered. "It's antics like that just sizzle my sausages."

"The kind you eat with scrambled eggs for breakfast, right?" 29 felt like strangling Warp for talking about the gossip he heard from Star Command. It gave 29 too many disturbing ideas.

"Naturally, you blithering idiot. What did you think I was talking about?" the evil emperor was clueless about how bad that particular phrase sounded.

"Nothing, nothing in the slightest," 29 cowered. "I just had a malfunction in my auditory cortex is all. The bruises you know."

"Oh, right," the emperor's temper died down. "Just go to the Zick bay when you get back. Some nurse grubs will take care of you."

"_Like I want one of THOSE things tampering around the inner sanctums of my mind,_" 29 kept this thought to himself.

Zurg started to sprint, just to spite the little brain pod. "Little wheels will have to work hard to catch up to meeeeeeee!" Zurg tripped over a brown rock jutting out of the ground, taking a spill over the edge of the sand dune. His large frame rolled down the mound of dirt, causing the grains to go everywhere; in his socks, down his shirt, into his eyes, and across his mouth. "Grrmppfflllrhhmmmph!" the esteemed emperor managed to utter the cries until he landed onto a flat mound of concrete below.

Miraculously, he didn't look much worse for the wear. It took a lot to damage Zurg's body, but not nearly so much effort to hurt his pride. He stood up with great haste, brushing off the dirt from his clothes.

"Evil Emperor Zurg!" 29 shouted with alarm. "Are you okay?"

"Do I LOOK ok to you?" Zurg bellowed in reply. He had a whole list of choice words (fake food-related swears) that he was going to use, but he broke off from his rant as his eyes beheld his prize.

"It looks like you were right all along, Zurg," 29 was drowning in amazement as the two stared at Anubis's temple, partially buried under the sand. The stone slabs that made up the temple were covered in intricate carvings of the half-dog half-man god of ancient lore, put together in a breathtaking pattern that must have used up eons of time, with the ancient tools available at the Xyz's disposal.

"Just as I planned," Zurg smiled to himself.

"But how did you know?" 29 questioned. "I myself would have never been able to spot it from space. The thing sank into the ground, for Hubble Telescope's sake!"

"That's what I'd like to find out," Zurg wondered aloud, as he slid into the ancient tomb, swallowed by darkness.

* * *

Somewhere in deep space, where not even the light dared to venture, a silent alarm was tripped by Zurg's shenanigans, sending radio frequencies out in all directions in an endless loop; "_**The hallowed grounds have been breached**_**.**"


	7. Flame not what you think

O Fortune,  
like the moon  
you are changeable,  
ever waxing  
and waning;  
hateful life  
first oppresses  
and then soothes  
as fancy takes it;  
poverty  
and power  
it melts them like ice.

In a distant realm, marshy scenery dotted the landscape, permeated by thin patches of freshwater lakes. These bodies of water were bordered by tall rims of rock from past meteorite collisions with the planet's surface. The dense spring green trees had ferns for leaves; thick branches stubbornly against all who dared to enter into the underbrush. In the sparse areas where mud didn't sink into the ground, vines choked the landscape, forming a thick rug onto the floor.

And yet this tangled mess was home, to a bunch of scraggly Octopians anyway. They were light grey creatures, with octopi for heads, glistening with the cool mist hovering about the tops of the trees. Their bodies excreted a slimy layer that allowed their skin to remain moist enough to breathe the oxygen from the atmosphere. The general frames were humanoid; it seemed like every sentient race took on that form in one vague way or another. Wraps of seaweed woven into complex designs covered them from the waist down, while moccasins covered their bottom feet, with tiny shells acting as beads, woven into the fabric. The most striking thing about them was their eyes. Eight optical units bulged out of their heads, one above each arm twirling around its head, made in a perfectly symmetrical patter around their entire cranium; their simple design only allowing them to sense fluctuations in the intensity of light, not their wavelengths.

"Hmm," an entirely different organism sighed, curled up in the thick branches of an ancient tree. "To live in a world without color wouldn't be too bad. They tend to distract people from the bigger picture." Her voice wasn't sad, or happy, or dismayed; just startlingly neutral. Bland, without a glimmer of emotion, just the way she liked it.

This odd person was a shady creature, literally. Her body seemed to be made from a fiery shadow, with small tongues of flames coming off the ends of her long hair, the edges of her boots, the very tips of her shoes, the hem of her shirt, the edges of the covering sewn symmetrically across her chest, and the ends of the long gloves that fanned out past her elbows. She was entirely black, save for her violet eyes. They glowed as she glowered, "I **hate** color."She turned on her side and gazed across the landscape. In one of the shallower mudflats, the inhabitants of this world stuck stilts into the ground, which they used as the basis of their huts, made from stripped branches, with thick reeds tied into circular roofs. One of the Octopians, the chief by the look of it, with silly blue paint creating a picture of the three moons on his chest, walked over to the tree she was situated in, departing from the village behind him.

The girl sighed, sounding like the crackling hiss of a dying campfire, as she hopped onto the ground, landing lightly on her feet. "Hello Cl'glkm'thk" she made a voice without sound, using her mind to project the thoughts into his mind.

"Greetings to you, gloomy one," the strange creature said in a series of clicks. "It is so nice of you to stop by for a visit."

"Yeah, it's been like what, a couple days?" she guessed.

"Try three years," he answered back in reply. (Three of their years were around 732 weeks.)

"Oh, well that explains how you got so big, and here I thought it was just an overnight growth spurt," she shrugged her shoulders. "You know I'm not good at the whole time thing. Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things."

"My father never got a chance to say how blessed we were to have you enter our midst," Cl'glkm'thk continued. "You were an inky black star falling from the sky, bringing us cures in times of disease, saving my life," the arms jutting out of his head wriggled about, as he held his humanoid hands out to the sides, "but before we could properly thank you, you vanished without a trace."

"I tend to do that," she stated, not too coldly, but not warmly either. "And don't be so grateful about it. It was nothing special."

"Nothing special?" the Octopian practically choked. "You spared our race from extinction."

"On a whim," her eyes grew glassy. "I could have just as easily destroyed your land, causing fires to ravage across the surface. It all depends on my moods; nothing more."

"What moods? You're always in the same one!" he was confused.

"That's what you think," she leaned back against the tree, with rough bark against her back, "but how far can the mortal eye extend into the realms of someone else's mind?"

"Enough to know that you're good," the Octopian firmly believed.

"Or terribly lost, diverted from the path of my true nature," she stared off into the distance.

"What in the realm makes you think that?" he questioned, stretching out a hand to reach her shoulder.

She flinched, backing away with incredible speed, somehow managing to run backwards up the tree.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cl'glkm'thk quickly responded. "I forgot that you don't like to be touched."

"Not unless you want to get _burned_," she menacingly stated.

"Come now," he ignored the threat in her voice. "You must join us for a meal of celebration. It's not often that a goddess descends onto our plane."

"But I'm not a goddess!" the girl had been through this conversation a thousand times. "I'm just Shade, one of many aliens, albeit none of them are quite like me."

The chief ignored her explanation. A goddess was a much more enchanting thought than some random species from across the spiral galaxy.

Shade groaned, as she jumped from tree top to tree top, heading off towards his people who smelled like fish that were left in the sun too long, when a ringing sound impacted her ears, hidden under her flaming hair. "Ow! Did they have to make the beacon so darn loud?" she clamored.

"What plagues you?" Cl'glkm'thk asked her.

"I sense that someone is doing something incredibly stupid on the other side of the universe." She growled, "_The purple fool_."

She hopped off from the tree branches, landing directly in front of the chief. "I must take my leave."

"If you have other more important matters to attend to," Cl'glkm'thk clicked, "then I'd best not stand in your way." He turned his attention to a group of octods, the young offspring of the species, playing with a very interesting dog, if it could even be called that.

The animal was predominantly black just like its owner, with its eyes, tongue, the tip of his nose, a fiery marking on the top of his snout, and the flames extending from his joints, chest, cheeks, the top section of his mane, his bushy tail ending in a forked flame, and the tips of its ears being violet. The strange pet, which Shade termed Rune Dogi, was actually an extension of Shade's powers, a hollow vessel in which she stuffed her emotions into, so she wouldn't have to deal with them personally. They had been separated for so long that they had become totally different beings, each with their own individual personality. As the "dog" further developed its own character through the centuries, the ensuing breakage led to more of Shade's bothersome emotions to come back to her, reverting her to what she calls a "less than ideal" state of mind, for emotions distract beings even worse than colors do. Despite this setback, Shade has grown to love, or at least tolerate the little beast, which was in actuality greater than half her size.

Due to the basis of its creation, Rune Dogi and Shade were constantly in tune with the other's thoughts, sometimes acting on behalf of the other's will. This being said, Rune Dogi was incredibly loyal to Shade, always by her side, unless she sent it away to track beings she considered pests.

"Rune Dogi," she got its attention. He raised his head from the ground, while the other octods still continued to rub his belly, scratching him behind the ears. His flames were room temperature, so the children were safe to pet him as they pleased.

The creature tilted its head upon hearing his master's command.

"There's something I need you to do," she whispered into its mind. "Planet X, hunt, now."

Rune Dogi immediately burst away from the crowd of children, raking off with a crackling noise as he disappeared into the shadows of space.

"Where are you going?" Cl'glkm'thk was barred from the previous transaction of thoughts between master and pet.

"To see what mess the purple priss has gotten himself into while I was gone," she calmly snarled, as she liquefied into shadows that seeped into the cracks in the ground.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Buzz grimaced, crinkling his nose in disgust, as he remembered the setback he encountered in his own home, as he sped his orange craft past the glittering stars. "I can't believe that even Zurg would stoop to such a level! That scent was so revolting. How does he even stand it?"

The unfortunate ex-captain shuddered as he remembered how he had to take twelve showers in a row. No matter how diligently he scrubbed his body, the odor never entirely washed away down the drain, where it belonged, "Ghastly sludge didn't come off all the way. As XR would say, I still smell like Booster did after he ate jalapeno and peanut butter soup."

Buzz gripped the stick that was placed in drive in an iron grip, "But something as simple as a repellent won't deter me from my task at hand; stopping Zurg once and for all, to make sure that the universe is safe from his evil claws. I took an oath to defend the galaxy from monsters like him, no matter what the danger, and I'm not about to break it now, ranger or not."

The man valiantly zoomed through space, doing difficult maneuvers to occupy his mind while he traveled through the side routes he had learned during those tedious traffic duty sessions to avoid interstellar lines, and the impromptu inspections that the other space rangers were on, no doubt searching for suspicious activity that always seemed to happen around Wormhole exit 711.

After a few minutes of deep space travel, he found Planet X within his range of vision, the beige planet covered in ancient ruins, dust, and swirling sandstorms. "A fitting place for someone with a dry sense of humor," Buzz wanted to remember that in case Zurg and he got into playful banter that usually preceded their tussles.

Buzz's GPS targeting system on his scanner alerted him to slow his descent, as gravity would add momentum to its entry into the atmosphere, causing Buzz to ease the amount of pressure his foot had on the gas pedal, grudgingly. Even though he wanted to make up for lost time, he would not go against the standard procedures for landing on a planet, however deserted it may be. Traveling at full force could cause a horrible crash into the desert ground, harming any organisms in the vicinity. Buzz grimly chuckled, as he thought about how Ozma would be in an uproar about how he disturbed innocent creatures during his final moments.

"_Ozma_…"

Buzz encrypted a message into his ship's memory core, just in case he didn't come back from this escapade alive.

_Ozma, you're possibly the galaxy's most infuriating woman, and I've always loved you. You have a passion for your work, the courage to remain isolated on a dangerous planet, and the patience to put up with my antics, when fate brought us together. I hope that someday that you'll find someone who loves animals as much as you do._

_Mira Nova, I am certain that you'll become the next great hero of Star Command, as one of our finest rangers. I am also sure that you'll also be the best possible Queen of Tangea, bringing tolerance and understanding to all your subjects, when the time comes. Heck, maybe you'll even get the Grounders and Tangeans to live as equals. I wouldn't put it past you._

_XR, no matter what anyone else says, you are one of our top rangers. Sure, you get into your fair share of scrapes, and cause interplanetary incidents on a regular basis, but you always come through for us in the end, using your skills in mathematics, machinery, and other such matters to aid us on our missions, and your sense of humor (wacky as it is) really brightens up the room, relieving the tension that otherwise would impede our team. I know I may not act like it, but I appreciate all that you do. I am proud to call you my rookie. And to me, you're as human as any of us; not expendable in the least._

_Booster, you're sense of compassion, common sense, strength, and unwavering bravery in the face of danger make me certain that you'll one day become a future Commander, able to take things into context, and planning the best course of action. You have an appetite for justice that rivals that of your food. Watch after the team when I'm gone. You're the kindly glue that helps hold our team together._

_And Nebula, Commander Nebula, I'm sorry for my actions. I know I was wrong. I deserved to be disciplined, and am ashamed for our last meeting, but I just have to do this; not for some twisted sense of revenge, but to spare other people from a similar fate._

Lightyear summed up his thoughts with a general statement.

_If I did one thing right with my life, it was enlisting in Star Command, to protect the innocent, defend justice, and fight all things evil to infinity and beyond._

Buzz ended the message, as his ship heated up while descending onto the desolate badlands below.

"And jolly well past that," he smiled, remembering Fop Doppler's inane interpretation. It didn't seem nearly so annoying now. It might be the next catchy saying, if Buzz went gone for good.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zurg's hands ran delicately across the rough walls, tracing each of the carvings. Countless hieroglyphics were cut into their surfaces, crammed into every possible space. The crowded letters were arranged in a sporadic pattern, zigzagging in one corner, twisting around the next; the whole thing was very hard to follow. The letters looked more like the innards of a computer, with mechanical looking parts crafted together to tell a tale. There were gears, wires, and other geometric shapes derived from the stylization of mechanical parts woven together into the most complicated written word that 29 had ever seen, along with the occasional drawing of an icicle or two.

29's brain circuits were working overload to decipher the elaborate messages. "This does not make sense," he muttered, shaking his head in confusion. "It's written in a totally different style than the other tombs, nay, the rest of the planet itself! How could this one area remain so cut off from the rest?" He scanned the letters with a maroon light emitted from his yellow cryptograph decoder machine for the fifth time, with the computer chips inside the device comparing it to every other language, both from this millennium and the last, it had stored in its databases. For the fifth time, the screen turned up with an error page, the red letters glistening sinisterly in his face.

Zurg would want a data report soon. 29 could feel it in his CPU. "Evil Emperor Zurg?" 29 shivered with fear. "I a-am sorry to announce that I haven't made much progress." 29 felt like he could kiss his motherboard goodbye. He tightly shut his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

Nothing happened.

After the most agonizing minutes of his life, 29 dared to open his eyes.

His synthetic body was still in one piece, and not one brain cell in his head was fried. The brain cast a curious glance at his overlord, who seemed too transfixed by the pictographs to even notice that the brain pod was there. "Um, my sovereign leader?"

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhh," Zurg silenced his exasperating company. "I'm reading."

"Alright my—what?" 29 couldn't believe his simulated ears. "Did you say that you can actually read these scribbles?"

"They're NOT scribbles," the emperor chided what he thought was a dimwitted lackey. "They're Zinese, if I'm not mistaken." _My native tongue_, he kept that piece of information to himself. "But what the fudge is it doing here? The Xyzonianderthals never used this particular dialect before, not in any of the museum exhibits I '_borrowed_,' although the icicles are their style…" Zurg went off onto a tangent, apparently adding ten questions for every one answer that he searched for.

29 was left to gape at the emperor in amazement.

Zurg's resulting look would have humbled the snobby King of Tangea himself. "What are you looking at, you inferior bookworm?"

"It's just," 29 was unsure of how to go on, "I never picked you out for a scholar. A dictator yes, with a decent mind for business, but never this educated in ancient matters."

"What, is this because I wear purple?" Zurg was really getting tired of people making assumptions based on his choice of clothing, "because if it is, I swear I'll—"

"Not at all, my most brilliant leader," 29 tried to calm him down. "It's just that I thought of you as one of the more muscular types, with you wrestling Lightyear as we brain pods completed the experiments, and the grubs built the weapons."

"Maybe I just didn't want to bother myself with the menial work, instead focusing on conquering galaxies, you pile of quivering ectoplasm!" Zurg did his best to sound enraged, but was rather glad with the compliment on his physique. "Although I do see your point; my form is quite formidable."

"Indeed," 29 dared to take the chance to roll his eyeballs. "So," 29 asked, while rotating around the emperor, "what exactly does it say?"

"Do I honestly have to waste my voice explaining these ancient runes to you?" Zurg asked in a tired voice, much more interested in reading than arguing with his minion at this point. Without waiting for a reply, Zurg answered, "Alright, I will, but only because it will help me organize the thoughts better once I speak them aloud."

Zurg cleared his throat, preparing to tell the tale:

_Heralding from the lands of snow and ice is our race. We are the gales, the wind, the Zephyrs. Our blood is colder than the tundra; our bodies reflect a color whiter than the stars. Aided by the blizzards of time, we have transcended into immortality, with complete enlightenment trapped inside the grip of our frozen fingertips. _

_And so we spread our blessed race, our holy selves, into the vast expanse of the universe just waiting for us to take the throne as the true heirs to the Creator's dominion. We conquered the laws of physics, bending them as we see fit, gaining powers beyond mortal comprehension. These gifts are perfected by our spirits, aided by an energy formed through bending the natural rhythms all around us, with our bodies as the vessels for our grand minds. We are an indestructible race, only susceptible to the claws of each other, thereby reducing any resistance that may have stood in our way. _

_Our kind can tamper with other creatures at the very level of their molecules, atoms, quarks, infusing their will with our own, playing with the very molecular fabric that constructs each of their cells; our toys, creating gods among them to keep things in order, all formed to serve us, strengthening our reach across all life and death. Any and all competing sentient organisms were slaughtered. Survival of the fittest at its purest form. _

_As for the weaker species, with bodies as soft as their minds, were drilled into submission, demoted to performing tasks far below us. The remnants of the survivors were spliced and diced, allowing us to mix these stocks with those of other species, producing novel combinations that were better suited to their chores, also allowing us to breed different species together just to see its effects, and decode even more out of the subatomic level of their genetic codes, far unlike our own crystallized components. Theirs was a more corruptible form, able to be mutated, while our templates remained locked in perfection. _

_We did not wish to have these mutant beasts run among the masses of our kind, so we created a base on this planet of sand, a hot disagreeable area not keen to our features, and forced them to mass produce textiles, equipment, and other manufactured goods for us to enjoy. The "gods" such as Natron, Anubis, and others were simply formed to help unify the lesser beings into believing that they must obey. _

_The entire universe fell at our feet in a short expanse of time. Soon we were branching into different dimensions, different planes of existence, conquering all, and laying waste to those foolish enough to stand in our way. Sadly, there was a traitor in our midst, condemning the Zephyrs to blow no more._

"You're some storyteller," 29 commented. "But if that's true, does that mean the vast collection of species concentrated in this galaxy, far from their homelands, never truly belonged here? That they, that all of us were derived from slaves? It would make sense why so many different sentient species are able to breed with one another, and how so many different varieties cropped up on the same planets, but how could that supposedly almighty race just vanish, without a trace, save for this snapshot?"

"_Are you __**that**__ gullible_?" Zurg scoffed. "The whole thing is utter nonsense—such balderdash and poppycock. I mean, throughout the whole thing, they never mentioned a 'horned one,' or the royal color purple anywhere! This is just a fairytale designed by some troublemaker, one I'd respect more, if he included me in this myth. I think I'd make a debonair god, with my dashing good looks." Zurg thought it was appropriate to strike a less than heroic pose, complete with jazz hands.

For the second time that day, 29 wished that the evil emperor already disposed of him, so he wouldn't have that image scarred into his databanks.

"What makes you so sure that they knew about beings like you all those years ago?" 29 didn't really want to know the answer. He was partially afraid of what he might learn.

"Because of this," Zurg pointed to an N inscribed into a rotatable circle, embedded at the end of the written story.

"An N?" 29 wondered aloud.

"No it's not a mere N," Zurg snapped. "It's a Z on its side! Through the times, the cylinder must have gotten moved from its original position."

"How do you know it's not supposed to be an N?" 29 wanted to find his reasoning behind that one.

"Because, my dear brain pod," Zurg tried to mimic Sherlock Holmes's accent. He failed miserably, sounding more like he was a congested mode of the British energy vampire, "Z is the best letter of them all! Praise my great intellect!"

"But sir—"

"I SAID PRAISE!" Zurg commanded.

"I'm praising, I'm praising!" 29 bowed up and down to his master, sticking his arms out in front of him, in an attempt to pacify his short temper.

"Now to remedy the situation, so no other idiot gets confused," Zurg's fingertips gripped the tarnished cylinder on all sides, twisting it so the letter Z was quite visible to the wandering eye. "There, you see how much better that loooooooooo—" a trap door opened up beneath the emperor's feet, causing him to plummet down into the inky darkness. "Not agaaaaaaaaaaain!"

"Don't panic, 29," the brain pod was wheezing to himself. "Just look at the bright side. All you have to do is get a rope, pray that his majesty's bones aren't broken (if he even has them), hoist up the heavy mound, and contend with his unadulterated rage. That's not so bad, is it?"

The trap door snapped shut, and its edges were melted with an intense crackling cyan light, permanently welding the darned contraption shut.

"Okay, now it's time to PAAAAAANIC!" 29 wheeled out of that accursed tomb as fast as his accelerator would go.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mira and Booster were sitting in the plain white cafeteria, feeling uneasy with their team so fractured. It just wasn't the same without Buzz Lightyear, the man they had admired and come to respect. Booster was so distressed, that he didn't even touch his food. He just used a fork to twirl the mess around, until his separated helpings of green jello, red chili, and creamed corn became one giant blob of brown gunk.

"Come on Booster," Mira tried to perk him up, "you love the LGMs' chili. Said so yourself!"

"I don't feel very hungry," Booster muttered. It might have been a passable lie too, save for the fact that his stomach grumbled like a starving lion.

"Booster," Mira was in the middle of giving Booster some words of comfort, when loud booming sounds, which reminded Mira of a giant pinball machine.

"_XR_," Mira groaned wondering what kind of trouble the mischievous robot had concocted. It was barely two hours since Buzz departed from the scene, and everything was already going to Hell in a hand basket?

As if on signal, the frantic machine raced over to Mira's side, squeezing her leg tightly, with fear shining through his lenses. "Mira, Booster, it tried to catch me, possibly to feast on my cute little remains. I don't WANNA be thought of as dinner again!"

"Slow down, ranger," Mira commanded, prying his arms off her leg (man they were strong). "What was trying to get you?"

"Thaaaat!" he pointed jerkily at the far end of the commons, before racing around behind Booster's gargantuan back.

"I don't see any—whoa," Mira ended her sentence in mid-thought.

Booster, Mira, XR, and every other ranger stared at a black shadow that appeared to be taking on a three-dimensional form right before their eyes.

"_**Wh...s…urg**_"


	8. Doggone it

Fate is against me  
in health  
and virtue,  
driven on  
weighted down,  
always enslaved.  
So at this hour  
without delay  
pluck the vibrating strings;  
since Fate  
strikes down the string man,  
everyone weep with me!

29 sped across the sand, ignoring how the grainy nightmare was clogging his gears, turning his wheels on overdrive, thrusting a wave of sand behind him as he made his way towards the stealth ship. He just had to reach the ship. There was a radio built into its sleek design, and he could use it to contact Warp Darkmatter. If anyone could break out the vile one himself from the tomb of terror, exploding all obstacles in his path, it was that blue imp.

"But what if there's no one left to recover. What if the emperor is—" the brain pod shook his head as a physical manifestation of denial. "No. He can't be; that purple brute has been through worse before, surviving hand-to-hand combat with giant chin wonder."

The ever prepared brain pod went through the alternate scenarios anyway in the safety of his mind, just in case Zurg was really deceased, "If he really was gone, what would become of us pods and grubs? Sure, our lives were miserable with him, but at least we had lives. Without him, well, Star Command would step in, and things will only get worse from there." He shivered, even though the air touching his metal was scalding hot. "I am NOT going to PC-7, prison planets are no place for scraggly brains hiding behind books. They'd eat me alive, calling me _their_ brain food!"

He tried to shake those unsettling thoughts out of his jar, "The only way to stay sane, and in one piece, is to arrange for a rescue team to come in and break him out."

With his mind made up, 29 sped past the landscape with even more enthusiasm, unintentionally forging a trail through the sand; the purple depressions behind him formed as his paint chips flicked off the battered underpinnings of his mechanical build.

**…**

The sky had grown darker by the time the hapless brain pod reached his destination. He almost wept with joy when he saw the black vehicle popping out from beyond the matching dunes, one indistinguishable from the next. Finally, he'd be able to contact Warp to save their leader, and more importantly, he'd be able to flee to Planet Z, where he felt a smidgen safer in his element.

"Test tubes and beakers, here I come," he cheered, as he rounded the corner to reach the driver's side. As he spotted the shiny obsidian door handle, his metal frame crashed into a solid orange rock, sending vibrations down his inner cords, rattling his neurons. Stars flashed before his eyes. "What in the name of Einstein's theory of relativity?" 29 tried to get to his feet, or gyratory devices as the case may be, but he was trapped on his back like a turtle. No chance of getting up unless some kind soul pulled his arms, using the motorized limbs as levers. 29 shifted his eyes to the side, trying to deduce the nature of the obstacle that caused him to be in this predicament. As he stared at the ground, he saw a thick pair of the ugliest boots he had ever seen, rivaling even Zurg's colorblind sense of fashion. They were large, green, and mean; big enough to fit two normal sized feet into each shoe.

That could only mean one thing.

"Oh no," 29 could not believe his luck.

"Oh yes," Buzz Lightyear replied. He had arrived to the planet's surface moments earlier, concealing his ship with a holographic image of a sandy hill right beside Zurg's ship (yes, Lightyear noticed the bumper sticker). The illusion disappeared after 29 collided into the orange transport vehicle.

The brain's eyes swiveled upwards to get a good look at his captor. Lightyear's mandible looked even larger from this angle, like an upside-down mountain, ending in a swirly rounded point.

"What are you going to do to me," 29 sighed, already formulating a plan to break out of Buzz's makeshift containment fence no doubt strung up between two ruins. He didn't have much respect for this muscle-bound hero, expecting him to be dense just as the mindless drone of the police forth the brain pod thought him to be.

"Oh, nothing much," Buzz acknowledged. "I'll just leave you locked inside my ship until further notice."

29's eyes almost popped out of his cortex. He never expected Buzz to be this incredibly lacking of forethought. Sure, the ranger could take out the space keys, but 29 could easily hotwire a car any day. It was a required perquisite for working for the big Z himself. Before 29 could finish going over the diagrams of a standard cruiser in his head, Buzz pulled out an old-fashioned screwdriver and started unbolt the rivets that held 29's containment capsule in place.

"Hey, what are you doing?" 29 went white with fear. "You're not supposed to go in there. Stop that—

OW—that smarted, you callous upholder of the law. This is police brutality! I can sue you know. Brain's have feelings too."

Buzz failed to comment, as he took great pains to fully separate the jar from the mesh of wires, rods, nuts, and bolts that held it in place. He could take no chances of having the loyal lackey scurrying off to warn its master of his impeding arrest. To ensure the element of surprise, Buzz had to take away the minion's mobility, at least temporarily. Then, when he incapacitated Zurg, he could bring them both in, and be able to complete his life's dream; to see the murderer behind bars.

Lightyear carefully carried the protesting but silent brain—as he couldn't speak without the voice box bolted into his torso—and stuck a seatbelt around the jar, bubbling at the indignity of the whole situation. "Safety first," Buzz explained, as he took out the ignition key (designed after the Star Command logo) and slammed the door shut, trapping one brain enraged with his own stupidity.

He lost his wager with Warp.

It appeared that Buzz was sharp after all, intelligent enough to follow the path 29 so kindly formed straight to the temple of Anubis.

* * *

Zurg tried desperately to activate his rocket boots, but for some technical reason involving opposing polarities, magnetic fields, and electrical sabotage that we won't bother getting into, they went kaput, with tendrils of steam smoking from their edges.

"I knew they were too pricey!" Zurg snarled. "Passing off cheap things for quality craftsmanship. I bet this was made in China! That tag did look suspicious," Zurg landed with a loud ungraceful thud, with his backside contacting the ground at full force.

"_Frigmfragmgrumblemumble__**DIPSTICK**_!" The drop made the area of impact incredibly sore, and his masculine features only worsened the matters. Zurg was rubbing his stinging derrière for a solid two minutes, muttering about how he should have bought that iron underwear he saw on a rack during his last shopping spree. "I even had a coupon for the thing, but _noooo_, I thought it'd be too machonistic…"

Zurg swerved his head back up to the ceiling. The whole he fell through dissolved back into the wall. "Well that's unnerving," he stated the obvious. "This is NO way to treat an emperor of my standing. I don't care how crabby this decrepit shrine is. I deserve respect!" He stomped on the floor for added emphasis, which just then started to grumble, with the tenor of an earthquake. Pieces of rock started to chip off of the corners of the room, threatening to collapse any second.

"OK, OK, I give, I GIVE!" Zurg tried to appease the ruins, patting the sides of the walls, so they wouldn't cave-in over his head. "Nice musty building, with such horrid scenery. Don't want to hurt your Evil Emperor now, do you?"

The grumbling grew louder.

"Alright, don't hurt me, a random wandering guest," Zurg gave up on using his memorable title.

_RuMbLe _

"Fine, picky, picky, picky," Zurg groaned, "PLEASE don't hurt me. There, I said it. Are you happy now?"

The noise abruptly ceased.

"What kind of temple is this," Zurg muttered, "making me say 'please' and other such cordial mannerisms. What's next? A 'thank you?' Puh-lease." He covered his mouth in horror, "Oh no! I said it again! Those wretched tidings are contagious."

As Zurg was mumbling something along the lines of 'this just crumples my crumpets,' someone was stalking him, hiding just beyond his range of vision, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack.

Zurg felt a tingling sensation crawl up and down his horns, not from the fall, but from a sixth sense of sorts, that allowed him to know when he was being profiled for a less than gracious host. "Who's there?" his booming voice echoed through the grotto. "I am an emperor you know, _evil_ emperor, and I can make things get a whole lot worse if you don't show me yourself this instant!" His forearm morphed into a deadly plasma cannon, with red and purple spirals around its three black barrels, each glowing hotter as the gun warmed up, powered by the miniature fusion mitochondria in each of his cells. "It's rude to keep a royal waiting, you know."

The stalker ignored his warning; instead, he leapt from behind his purple vileness, crashing into his back, making Zurg lose his balance, forcing the evil emperor to the cold hard ground.

* * *

"ACK! What by all that is purple IS this?" Zurg tried to push his attacker away from his chest, but the impertinent flaming shadow held him down. "And what is this? Smoke slobber? _Get it off get it off get it off GET IT OFF!_"

Rune Dogi paid no heed to his blathering; the creature was much more interested in feeling around the emperor's face with his long sloppy tongue, with its forked flame hovering between Zurg's eyes. The purple emperor was a very interesting creature, and Rune Dogi just loved to play with interesting creatures. His tail was sizzling and crackling in delight, like ten dozen fire crackers had just been set off.

Zurg tried to claw at the shadow with his hands, as his gun had already absorbed its metallic cells into his body, but his hands just passed straight through the dog as if it was only a flickering delusion. "I think I'd rather deal with Lightyear at this point," Zurg whined. "Someone get this beast OFF of me!"

As if on command, the spirit beast elegantly arced over the emperor's head and landed on the other side, staring at his purple highness with intense purple flames that passed as its eyes.

"What are you staring at?" Zurg seethed. "You started it."

The creature simply shrugged before it lunged at the emperor once more. Zurg shot up into an awkward karate pose, with his hands waving in the air, "I am a certified purple belt. You do NOT want to mess with me! WHoAaa," he made that strange sound as he prepared to deliver a series of blows, flipping his hands in a series of stances, but he never got the chance to act on his rage. Rune Dogi had no intention of dueling to the death with the haughty "evil" being. Instead, he simply sat right in front of the emperor and wagged his tail, with a joyful grin on his face. The expression just radiated "pet me, I'm a loveable hound."

Zurg stared at the flaming shadow, uncertain of what the inane creature wanted, so he improvised, doing the thing he knew best: giving orders. "Lie down," Rune Dogi did so. "Roll over," the creature flopped onto its back, exposing its narrow belly. "Stay," Rune Dogi froze where he lay. After some time without seeing the creature twitch or even breathe, Zurg poked the creature with the tip of his boot, and asked "Uh, are you dead?" Rune Dogi shook his head, catching the error of his ways as he broke from his statue-like state. The animal snarled at its own foolishness.

Zurg shook his head, chiding himself for wasting time with the ethereal dog, and diverted his attention to finding a way through the twisting corridors, and possibly onto the discovery of a secret or two. "There must be something about my past in here," he hoped.

While Zurg turned around to run in the opposite direction, Rune Dogi gripped tightly to the hem of his pants, pulling the emperor back. "Unhand me you mutt!" Zurg growled. "This is Egyptian cotton! Stop biting it lest you make holes!" Rune Dogi ignored his comments, instead trying to lead Zurg down a different hallway. The emperor was too blinded by his own anger to realize that. "I'm taking you back to whatever pound you crawled out of—" Zurg's mouth grill froze in astonishment as Rune Dogi snatched the hard hat right off of his head.

"No you didn't," Zurg was thunderstruck. The rascal gave a wicked smile before darting off into the other direction. "That tears it," Zurg growled, while rolling up his sleeves. "I don't care if you are just smoke! I am going to _strangle_ you!" He threatened, as he raced after the dog's smoking trail, which literally bounced off of the walls.

"Here doggie doggie doggie," he tried unsuccessfully to goad Shade's pet out into the open. "This will only hurt a LOT!" he said, while curling his gloved hands into iron fists. "Where could you be hiding…?"

Zurg was momentarily distracted from his search, as the faint flicker of a screen caught his attention. He cautiously walked towards the source of the dim light, guarding himself against another surprise attack from the shady beast. As he reached the dusty light blue console, with cobwebs spread between the keys, and grains of sand jamming some of the buttons, his horns drooped, as he read the foreboding passage typed onto the screen.

**State of Affairs**

(updated on a bimonthly basis)

**Planets Destroyed/Sapped**: Mrazgada, Clepton, Zincofax, Hotowani, Rtiroka, Tyiurk, Kilohrenod, Polixzz, Crexcthkn, Babtiopa, Witheorm, Hargopia, Quresca, Zionthania…the list sprawled on for pages.

**Planets/Moons Conquered**: Jo-Ad (agriculture), Rhizome (salad buffet), Bathyos (seafood), Binipinardia (combination of gas with synthesized Baballion extract creates unusual properties), Canis Lunis (source of secondary fuel), Earth (redubbed Capital Planet and transformed into a park/zoo), Gargantia (pets), Karn (poaching grounds), Planet of LGMs (slave force), Mahamba 6 (must remodel with volcanos), North Polaris (icy haven), Olur 5 (prison planet), PC-7 (research facility/weapon testing area), Planet of Widows and Orphans (deal with the rebellious servant's families later), Planet X (our base of operations from which we directly deal with the inferior beings), Porcelon (animating inanimate devices is not a good idea), Raenok (source of cage matches), Rexon 5, (trash site), Rhizome (mulch), Roswell (target practice), Sands de Solay (burnt to the ground), Sentilla 6 (family vacation spot in which to dump unruly pests and watch the fiery display), Shragorak (on waiting list for destruction), Sitka 7 (snowy recluse for the royalty), Tangea (akin to a giant ant farm/ failed experiment to enlighten those animals), Trade World (center of commerce)…the list went on and on, but what caught Zurg's eyes the most was this…_Planet Zenon (Z) ancestral planet (a snowy paradise, our home)_.

**Semi-Sentient Beings/pack animals:** Jo-Adians, Tangeans, Heed, Chlorm, humans, LGMs, grubs, Plasmas, Rhizonians, Grounders, Valkyrans, Double Mouths, Roswellians, Raenoks, Bathyosians, Gargantians…this list included most of the races present in the entire galaxy.

**Mutations/Experiments**: This had the remaining races present in the galaxy, including Torqians, Loraks, and other vile creatures.

**Sentient Threats Terminated:** Gyres, Reptilians, Clones, Etchants, Horned Zinians (an involuntary shudder ran down Zurg's back.)

**Miscellaneous: **One race had enough intelligence to live entirely encased in a traveling fleet of ships, migrating across the universe. It was a promising ally, at least, until we learned all their secrets, hacked into their databanks, and saw no further use for them. They were demolished. One survived, although not for long.

**link to prisoner profiles:**

Any hints of happiness from his expression evaporated, as Zurg had an idea of who the survivor could be. "That dog must have been leading me here, but where'd it go?" Zurg turned about the room; neither a flame nor a puff of smoke was anywhere. Rune Dogi vanished without a trace.

Zurg ignored the sudden departure of the dog, returning his attention towards the ominous screen, sending an icy gaze through the metal. "Do I dare?" his fingers hovered over the link on the touch screen.

He clicked.

* * *

Shade tried to get her thoughts across to the many species on Star Command, but their minds were closed to that method of communication. All they heard from her was the physical manifestation of her anger, as her hair grew larger above her head, crackling with all the power of an inferno, yet none of the warmth. This only further instilled their beliefs that she was a hostile alien.

"Booster, go up from the left side and attack while XR and I keep this thing busy!" Mira shouted to the giant, as she carefully aimed shots from her wrist ray at Shade's legs.

"We'll try to apprehend the fire bug and lock her in the confinement chamber." Out of anger, Shade ripped off the annoying lasers from any ranged within three feet of her. "Make that the fortified unit."

Mira rushed to XR's side, giving him more detailed instructions. "Why do _I_ constantly have to be the distraction?" XR whined, upon hearing his role in Mira's plan. "My warranty's expired by now!"

"Because that shadow seemed to be after you," Mira informed him, as she flipped through the air to avoid Shade's claws, which instead tore straight through one of the central computers. The resulting energy discharge failed to bother Shade. In fact, she enjoyed the surge of electricity, using it to shoot her own stun rays at the masses.

"Oh, that makes me feel SO much better," the droid whined, as he rummaged around his inner containers. "Why do I still have gum?" he mumbled as he pulled out a pack of spearmint. The robot flung it aside, continuing the search around his insides until he drew out a specialized grenade. "This'll do," he chirped, pleased with his own backup plan.

Shade darted between the laser fire, deflecting them when she saw the chance to redirect the heated charges onto the rangers below. She even managed to destroy Commander Nebula's peg leg, which doubled as a firearm, with its own plasma discharge.

"All I need is to grab a few files on the purple dimwit who summoned me," she hissed, sounding more like a campfire that was doused with water, "but no, instead I have to fight an entire army. How grand," cynicism raged through her mind, as she doused ten of the rangers in a black shadow, causing their suits to malfunction, making the corruptible gear aim at the other members of their own team. "He pays dearly for this."

Interrupting her turbulent thoughts, XR tumbled, or rather, was pushed, into her way. Twenty different bazookas, pistols, and laser cannons popped out of his small frame. "Stop right there, before I blast you into space dust!" he said in a less than confident manner.

"Finally," Shade was glad to see the robot. Her shadows stretched out from the ground, surrounding the little robot in twisting black coils, which seeped into all his cracks and USB ports, just searching for a way to upload information from him. "Download all his information on my purple headache," she commanded the snake-like shadows to retrieve that particular piece of information. Instead of the protests she was sure to come out of the machine, XR smirked.

"NO!" Shade was petrified. Too late she noticed the blue and red grenade in XR's hand. Too late she perceived that the trigger was already pulled out. Too late she realized that it was a flash grenade.

The blinding flash burned her eyes. "Aaaaaieeeeeek!" she shrieked. Shadow based creatures do not like intense light. It's a proven fact.

"That will teach you to mess with me, you—you—" XR's eyes went wide with fear. The light didn't vaporize the demon as he hoped. Instead, it only increased her rage, and subsequently her power. The violet eyes blazed with so much fury, it sent chills down his titanium spine.

"_Youuuu_," she hissed. XR couldn't understand her thoughts, but could read the implications in her actions. Shade snatched the robot, puncturing his chest with her sharp claws, and slammed him into the wall, sending shockwaves throughout the room as well as his body.

Mira and Booster were racing towards the pair, but time itself slowed down, or maybe it just sped up for XR and the infuriated spirit. Whatever the case, XR had no way out.

Shade drew one hand back, intent on tearing out his memory chip straight from his plucky head, but she stopped, instead looking past XR to her own bitter reflection in a cracked mirror. Shade's eyes softened as she released the confused robot, allowing him to slump uselessly onto the floor. "Is that what I look like?" her hair fell limply around her shoulders. "Is that what I've become; the very thing I sought not to be?" She turned away, "No wonder they fear me."

Time reverted back to its normal speed, with Booster crashing into Shade, intent on trapping her between the wall and his large red form. She had different plans in mind, as she seeped onto the ground, back to a flat shadow form, rushing away from the chaos and confusion. She was heading straight for the launch bay, where she could make a cleaner escape.

Mira was the only one able to track the quick shadow amidst the bedlam. She opened her jet pack, using it on full speed to keep up with Shade. "I've got you now," she smiled, as started to use her Tangean powers, ghosting through the floor and into the shadow. As soon as she contacted Shade's flat form, Mira's mind was thrust into the shadow's world, full of loss, torment, and agony.

"Stay out of my head!" Shade screamed at Mira; her voice was finally understood through the connection. The sound was cracking with sorrow, startling the Tangean with its helplessness.

Mira tried to let go of Shade, so she could break away from the intense emotions that she had unwisely released from their graves, but the damage was done. Shade's subconscious will was too strong for both of theirs, wanting a release from their frozen state, needing someone, anyone to understand the misery trapped inside.

Mira was forced to see everything that Shade had gone through within the span of a few seconds. It was too much stimulation, too much torture for her to endure. The Tangean fell to the ground in a state of shock. Her skin went a much paler shade of blue, her bright eyes dimmed, and her face was stuck in a look so heart wrenching, that even Shade felt for her plight, even thought the spirit believed that the princess brought it upon herself.

Shade grumbled something about how she loathed nosy rangers as she placed her hands on Mira's head, sucking out a fraction of the pain, while pumping a healing dark energy into the blue body. By the time Shade was finished stabilizing all of her major organs, Booster, XR, and about fifty other organics in green and white battle attire crashed into the scene, believing the worst as they saw Shade's claws on one of their favorite rangers in a comatose state.

"This is not what it looks like?" Shade raised her hands in the air, trying to mimic a gesture of peace. Unfortunately, the rest of the officers thought that Shade was getting ready to attack once again, and took the opportunity to blast hundreds of shots at the partially innocent shadow being.

Shade disappeared in a puff of black smoke, as she transported herself to the only other place she knew in this galaxy, a fact she uncovered from Mira's mind: Tangea.


	9. A Royal Reunion of sorts

**Fallen angels at my feet**

**Whispered voices at my ear**

**Death before my eyes**

**Lying next to me I fear**

**She beckons me**

**Shall I give in**

**Upon my end shall I begin**

**Forsaking all I've fallen for**

**I rise to meet the end**

Splotches of light bubbled across Mira's field of vision. She felt the energy trickling out of her cells, awareness disappear from her reach. "_It's all over now_," the detached thought traveled through her mind. As Mira braced herself to enter into the deepest sleep of her life, she was vaguely aware that someone, or something, was pumping energy back into her systems, trying to revive her body before her spirit slipped away.

As she was going in and out of consciousness, she caught onto little pieces of information here and there. There were the choppy sounds of screams, flickering black curtains edging out of her field of vision (the Grim Reaper maybe?), thick hands carrying her away, and then being stuck with needles, plastic suction cups, and other monitoring devices, and even a warm smooth hand squeezing her own. She tried to pull it away, to say the grip was too tight, but her lips wouldn't obey. She was frozen, trapped within the depths of her mind. "_Got to stay awake_," she struggled against the wave of exhaustion. "_Got to warn the others_," she closed her eyes, succumbing to the darkness. **Lights out. **

* * *

In the palace, King Nova was strolling about his palace, giving orders left and right, "I want the flowers arranged over there, no not by the hideous doors we had to cut in for those inept space monkeys, by the other wonderfully arranged bouquet of traditional Tangean floral life. And WHO left this poster of Star Command in my little girl's room? Did I not order for all of them to be vanquished as the trash they are? Am I surrounded by incompetent grounders or Tangeans? I don't even know anymore!" The royal was being exceptionally snobby today, even by Tangean standards, but no one dared raise their voice against him. Not on this day.

"I'll be in my chambers if anyone needs me." King Nova elaborated, "Do me a favor and DON'T need me." Without waiting for a response from his subjects, he transformed into an electric ball of light blue energy, ghosting through the walls with such speed that one could almost swear he turned into a lightning bolt instead.

Once inside the privacy of his inner sanctum, he lost the air of superiority he usually wore, instead drooping his shoulders slightly, his eyes staring off into the distance. He absentmindedly felt the wedding band in his puffy back pocket. It had been years since he had taken it off, hiding it from view, but he couldn't bear to part with it, not really. As he closed his eyes, he could still picture it in vivid detail, with two white gold garlands inscribed with his name and hers twined around each other. A large light blue star emerald topped the whole thing off, with a white splotch in the middle, resembling a supernova. He remembered how he purchased this from a pair of matching rings, polishing both to a strong shine, admiring its beauty until his favorite star burned out.

"No matter how much time passes, the pain is still as raw as ever," he sighed, walking in steps much too loud, his brightly decorated shoes slapping against the smooth orange tiles. He phased through table after chair after frilly decoration, until his eyes found what he was searching for. "My love…" his hands stretched out to grace the surface of the oil painting made by the finest artisan on Tangea. It was concealed behind ruffled curtains and other manners of distractions. King Nova gently pushed them aside to reach his hidden quarry. It was a family portrait, made when Mira was only a yearling. There she was, sitting on her father's lap, with a tuft of red hair as fiery as her temper falling in the cutest little curls around her rounded face. As for King Nova himself, he looked much younger, much stronger, with his head held up high as grief had not yet burdened his narrow shoulders. He was so proud to be a father, not just to have an heir which was his duty as a king, but to have a child to love and nurture and protect against all harm.

"And what does she do?" He sadly chuckled, "She runs off to join Star Command, putting herself on the front line, putting her life and my heart in danger every minute of every day. Just as stubborn as her mother."

His fingers started to quake. Could he really face her haunting image after all this time? Did he have the courage, the strength? Could his eyes hold back the tears, or would he weep the same way he did on that fateful day? Against all common sense, King Nova scrutinized the image of his lover, nay, his best friend, a friend who so callously deserted him almost twenty years ago, stranding him in a world of nobles, frivolities, and pain, without one ally by his side.

"Leila," his voice cracked, choking back a scratchy sob. He gawked at her beauty even now. The woman had skin as blue as the clear skies, glowing softly as if she was under an intense beam of moonlight. Her hair was a deep royal blue color, free of any band of restraint, as she let the soft wavy hair rest around her shoulders bare. The topaz eyes glimmered with amusement and just a touch of rebellion. It was that spirit that made King Nova fall head over heels for her, and that was the very same spirit that put his daughter and himself at odds against each other. "Leila, why did you have to go?" He tried his best not to break down. "I told you that Grounders were not to be trusted, but you left anyway, certain that you could bring a truce between our people, so sure that good resided in their withered brown stalks," the clear tears streamed down from his eyes, "an adamant believer in quality, just like Mira," he added sourly. "And you agreed to go without guards as an act of good faith," he sighed, rubbing his forehead. _Hmm, since when did he get all these wrinkles? _

"I would never have allowed you to go, so you snuck behind all of our backs, leaving behind a single letter, assuring me that you'd return to these quarters before the day was over," He slumped against the wall as a shattered man. "You're body was found a week later, your beauty covered with pink moss, your flesh rotting, a deep wound with the energy signatures of those cursed dirt bags' handiwork clogged with pebbles and bloody silt, but your eyes, those topaz eyes, still had that same glimmer, undaunted even in the face of death itself." He shook his head, "If only it were me in your place. If only I listened to your words before. Then maybe you wouldn't have had to go off alone. Then maybe I could have saved you…"

The high and mighty façade returned in his voice, with a sense of purpose, "But I have a duty to my people, to my planet, to my daughter—our daughter," he turned his back on the picture, and her ideals, "and to myself. I won't let Mira die the same way you did, trying to find good in even the lowliest of those animals. Not even her precious team—space monkey, red slug, and tin toy in all—can stop me, so swears I, King of Tangea."

"Sir?" a fellow Tangean phased through one of the walls, interrupting King Nova's monologue.

The startled royal abruptly straightened his spine, not wishing for anyone to see him show the slightest hint of pain. "How DARE you interrupt me?" King Nova's temper was much shorter than usual, but that was to be expected on such a straining anniversary.

"Sire, I—"

"—better have an explanation for this foolishness, Sawyer," Nova glared at the young blond duke quaking in his white designer boots.

"It's just—"

"Speak up, for I haven't got all day," Nova interrupted yet again.

"YOU'VE GOT MAIL!" the sorry duke shouted before Nova had the chance to interrupt him.

"Is this some kind of joke?" the royal was outraged. "I'll have you know that shenanigans of this nature are NOT tolerable!"

"But sir," Sawyer cowered in fear, "it's important."

"Who could possibly be so significant?" the sarcasm was thick in his regal voice. "All the important beings in this universe are centered right here within these palace walls." His voice lowered, "I don't deal with those sniveling lower life forms on this day of all days."

"It's Mira," the duke straightened his posture.

Nova was shell-shocked. Mira never came over to visit. It was always him that tracked her down. He was never sure if it was because Mira hated her home—that she referred to as a gilded cage—or because she couldn't stand him.

"She's back," was all the blond boy could say.

"Mira…?" King Nova's voice trembled. "She's here?"

"Yes," the duke bowed, grateful that Nova had seen reason. "And she wrote that she has some urgent news to tell you, concerning matters she believes that you will find most intriguing. She won't converse with anyone else."

"So she's finally seen the light?" for the first time in years, a true happiness washed over Nova's face. "Oh joy! Now we can get started on the proper arrangements, preparing her to be the future leader of this planet. And possibly help her settle down with a _real_ man of proper standing," he started to drift into his fantasies of having his girl safe at last.

"I'll send her in before leaving you two alone," Sawyer bowed once more, so low that his tresses swept the floor, and left the room to bring King Nova's daughter in.

"I can't believe it," King Nova wiped away a cheerful tear from his eye. "After all these years, we're finally reunited as father and child. Happy days at last! I just knew she'd get this whole Star Command nonsense out of her system. I just knew it…" King Nova mentally prepared himself to meet his daughter. "Now don't get overexcited you old goat. This just might be a social visit, but still, it's a start."

A girl ghosted through the orange walls. A girl flipped her long fiery orange hair behind her head. A girl, with skin as blue as Leila's, had an expression saved for business matters scrawled across her face. A girl dressed in a Star Command outfit painted in those cursed green and white colors Mira had come to adore and her father had come to deplore stepped into the light, but it wasn't Mira.

Her dainty blue hand collided into Nova's face, covering his mouth so the bloodcurdling scream couldn't be released. Cold empty eyes bored through King Nova's mind, forcing a mental telepathy link between the imposter and the king. A voice akin to crackling embers greeted his mind.

"_We need to talk_."

* * *

Back in Star Command, Mira was down for the count. XR used his extendable arms to push through the crowds of uptight rangers, "Move over; let Mira have some room to breathe! You guys are packed tighter than Booster's snack compartment," XR tried to lighten up the situation. If he didn't everyone would panic, and more lives were put in jeopardy when people fell to pieces.

"Get this ranger to the emergency room stat!" Commander Nebula's harsh voice roared as the man hobbled through the room on one leg. Only a charred stub remained from his peg leg extension.

Nebula knew they just had to save Mira, not just because it would start an interplanetary war if the sole heir to the Tangean throne perished in the line of duty, but because she was a good ranger—the top of her field—and a loyal companion. She deserved a better fate than this.

"All LGMs to the medical lab, now!" the little green men silently scurried to their respective stations, putting on blue latex gloves, goggles, and getting a whole assortment of scanners, shots, and vials prepared for their newest patient.

Booster set aside his tears and ran towards Mira, grabbing her limp form in his strong arms. "Mira, please be ok, please be ok…" the mantra ran like a broken record in the Jo-Adian's mind, as he carried her suddenly frail looking body to the ER, failing to stifle the whimpers coming from his throat.

XR raced behind Booster, wanting to be sure that Mira was going to survive. "Oh, why can't organics be more durable? I blow up on a daily basis and you don't see me going offline," XR's sarcasm sensors kicked in, trying to distract his memory chip from the unthinkable; that his "undefeatable" friends truly were mortal. It was more than his Central Processing Unit could take.

When the robot finally entered into the med lab, his optical units expanded in horror. The feisty partner he had come to know and love was too still, too pale, too withdrawn. Was she even breathing? He felt a couple gears loosen as he saw her chest flutter, the hint of movement relaxing him only slightly. XR skidded over to her side, wanting so dearly to hold her hands, but she never let him before. He was after all only a robot, a machine, incapable of feeling.

"If that was true," he inwardly groaned, "then why do I feel like my wires feel like they've been yanked painfully out of my central cavity? It's worse than the freaking vampire bite." He grasped onto Mira's hands, completely oblivious to the puncture wounds within his own body, dripping with oil. Good grief, were they always so cold? Flesh is supposed to be warmer than metal.

Booster stood staring at Mira, laid out on the cotton mat, covered in so many tubes and wires that she looked more machine than Tangean. Her hair was frayed at the sides, still standing up in fright from the last scenes she witnessed. "Mira," Booster's voice quavered with fear, "can you hear me?"

"_Noooooooo_," one of the LGMs spoke nonchalantly.

That answer stimulated Booster to cry his eyes out.

"What's the matter with you?" XR failed to restrain himself from shaking the LGM until his head rolled off. "She's dying, Booster's a wreck, and you can't even muster up enough concern to shed a tear or two?" He pushed the LGM to and fro, "I failed my sensitivity training, and even **I** know better than that!"

"_Just doing our jooooooooob_," all the LGMs replied. "_If we get too worked up, mistakes might be made,_" the LGM nearest Mira replied while scribbling down her symptoms on a clipboard.

"XR, let go of Mira's physician this instant!" Commander Nebula bellowed.

"But pop," XR whined.

"NOW!" Nebula got XR to flee to the other side of the room, where he could be safe from his father's temper and check out Mira's vital signs in peace.

"Run a full diagnostic on her," Nebula gave the task to the top LGM who specialized in nursing.

"_Already staaaaaaaarted_," the LGM notified him.

"How long will it take," Nebula had a feeling he wouldn't like the answer.

"_One, maybe two…_" the LGM trailed off.

"Hours?" Nebula asked.

"_Daaaaaaaays,_" they concurrently replied.

* * *

King Nova was terrified. Who was this imposter? Was it another of Lord Angstrom's spies? That cursed duke gave Tangeans a bad name, but Nova had never seen another girl who looked just like a carbon copy of his own daughter, unless it was a clone. His eyes widened with fear, as he could barely handle one rebellious daughter. Now he had to contend with two?

"Relax, you uptight geezer," the girl sighed. "I am not in the mood to hear you whine about dignity and valor and your inferior superiority complex." With a wave of her hand, King Nova was sent reeling into a mahogany chair at the end of the room. Sure, the cushions softened the blow, but not enough to completely dissipate the tingling sensations running along his back as pain spread through his body.

"Where's Mira?" Nova asked calmly. It would do him no good to lose his cool. He had to be as sharp as ever to get past this telekinetic and telepathic being who could ghost through walls and communicate solely through thoughts…realization overcame him. "You're not even Tangean, are you."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" she acerbically stated. After getting one of those _you know I'm right_ looks from King Nova, the girl sighed, "Fine." Shadows swirled from around the room, covering her body until they dissolved her disguise, revealing Shade underneath.

"You have to admit that I did a pretty good imitation. It's just the eyes I never seem to master," Shade strolled in an arc around the room, pretending to take a keen interest in all of King Nova's knick knacks and royal upholstery. "Then again, they are a window into the soul, so they must look pretty blank if you don't even have one…"

"As I asked before," Nova was losing his patience, "where's my little girl?"

"She's alive and well in Star Command, if that's what you're asking." Then Shade's eyes narrowed in deep contemplation. "Well, she's alive at the very least. That's something I suppose."

"What did you do to her?" anger radiated from his cutting glare.

"Hey, it's not what I did to her," Shade defended herself, flames lengthening above her head. "It's what she did to me. I didn't ASK for her to go snooping around my mind. Guess she found some events that were just too much for her brain to handle tis all," she continued speaking before Nova took that last statement as an insult, "and I'm in no way implying that she isn't smart; just not able to handle certain things of a more gruesome nature." She gestured to key features around the room, "She _was_ sheltered in here after all."

"I swear if you hurt one hair on her head—"

"You'll what?" Shade scoffed at his threat? "Kill me?" The dark flames in her hair wavered in amusement, "I'd like to see you try."

"So eager to meet your demise?" Nova retorted. Lightyear was not the only one who could keep up with witty banter.

"No, I'm just keen on seeing how you try to slay the embodiment of darkness," Shade shrugged her shoulders. "I mean come on, have _you_ ever heard of someone killing a nightmare? Simply preposterous."

"My guards will be coming in any minute now, as they heard all this racket," Nova coolly stated.

"No they won't," Shade answered back in a bored tone. "The room is soundproof, they think that you're still talking to your unruly daughter, and I may have tampered with their watches, and since they'd never think for a moment that Tangean technology could fail, they'd just assume that time was passing excruciatingly slowly." The gleam in her eyes made Nova sure that she was smiling, or that she would have been if she had a mouth to begin with.

The king started to perspire on the back of his neck. This was not good. He tried to get out of his chair, attempting to use some of his mental powers to break Shade's spell, but her force was overpowering, making his limbs feel like they were as heavy as the planet itself. It was all he could do to muster up the power to breathe. "So are you going to dispose of me now or after you tell me of your heinous plot," he said, with a hint of resign in his voice.

Shade glowered at him, "Why does everyone think I have some sort of evil agenda hidden up my flaming sleeves? Is this because of my hair?" She grumbled, "I swear, if I see one more person declaring me a monster because my locks can't stay still, I'm going to go inferno on their sorry butts!"

Her eyes widened with regret before she recollected her thoughts, delving back into a monotone. "I am sorry to have let that little outburst out into the open. I assure you that it will not happen again."

King Nova was utterly confused at this point, "Then what do you want?"

"What I want is unattainable," she coldly stated, "but what I need, well, that's a different story entirely."

She went through her mental list, "First and foremost, I require a quiet place where I can think—preferably dark—so collect my thoughts, as this world is full of way too many bright lights and colors and sounds. I don't know how you can think straight in such a stimulus ridden environment."

"Second of all, I need some transportation, because flying around though the expanse of space without the aid of a spacesuit is apparently an uncommon sight here, and is bound to get me noticed," she lowered her head to King Nova's face, "and I don't want to be noticed."

"And lastly," she turned her back on him while pacing about the room, "I want to take a closer look into your mind…"  
"WHAT?" That last request was too much for the king. "I will not have such filth as you rummaging about in my head. That is out of the question!"

Shade appeared by Nova's side in a nanosecond, "I don't believe you understand the severity of your situation," she grabbed his throat. "I could just as easily crush you with just a thought, or save you for another day."

"But why _my_ brain," Nova complained.

"Because this universe apparently has forgotten the core language, save for the Tangeans; your minds are more open to the realm of mental communication. To ensure that I don't get into misunderstandings with the other barely sentient species, I want to study your brain patterns and adapt them to my own, making my thoughts much more readable to outsiders without the need of physical contact," she continued, "and you owe me."

"How do you figure that?" Nova wanted to know.

"Because I let you live," Shade replied, "and because your daughter's life hinged on my actions, and I felt in a giving mood at that point in time."

Nova's lower lip trembled, "Mira?"

Shade looked away, concealing how touched she was that a father could care for his daughter so, even if she went against his very principles, "Whatever rumor ends up streaming down to these headquarters, just know that I didn't try to harm your child. In fact, I healed her physically, as crazy as that sounds."

Shade leaned against the back wall, once again facing Nova, "She is only out of sorts for the moment; nothing a little counseling can't fix."

The knots in King Nova's shoulders eased. For some strange reason, he believed that what the shadowy character said was true. His daughter was safe, and that was enough for him, but it still didn't change the fact that he was less than thrilled for having Shade as a temporary house guest.

"I don't have a choice, do I," he more groaned than asked.

"You catch on mighty quick," Shade straightened out all the creases from her wispy gloves, preparing to stick her hands through the contents of his mind. "Let's get started now, shall we?"

* * *

"LGMs," Commander Nebula's voice gave away how tired he felt, "have you made any breakthroughs?" He stumbled into the med bay on an improvised peg leg—acquired from the wooden handle of a mop—making him look more like a space buccaneer than an officer of the law.

"_Negative commander_," they sadly shook their heads. "_Patient appears to be in a self-induced coma_."

"Why in cosmos would she do that?" Nebula couldn't see a reason. "She's faced worse situations before and never faltered, not once!"

"_The results are inconclusive_," the head LGM's three eyes scanned the data from the charts.

"So in other words, we have no idea why a perfectly good ranger is dead to the world?" Nebula buried his face in his hands. Ohhh, the trouble this was going to bring. He could just imagine it now; Mira Nova being trapped in a comatose state indefinitely, Tangea declaring war on the rest of the Galactic Alliance, people running chaotically through the streets frightened of an outlandish monster that may or may not still be within this quadrant, and mountains of paperwork would be filled out just to get the appropriate documents. His hand already started to cramp just thinking about it.

"_In theory," _the free thinking LGM offered up his opinion, "_only trauma of a severe nature could force subject Mira Nova to shut down her mental processes_," the LGMs commented all at once. "_And we have no idea what the powers the shadow creature holds."_

The other LGMs dismissed his idea, _"She will most likely be able to pull herself out of it once her brain manages to repress the information or deal with it in an unbiased manner_."

"Most likely?" Nebula huffed.

"_95.33321 percent chance of a full recovery_," they sang in a chorus.

"And the other…(he tried to calculate the number in his head)… possibility?" Nebula gave up on doing the calculation in his head.

"_There is still a 4.66679 percent chance that she will remain unconscious until we turn off the life support machine…_" all of their eyes looked at the ground as if it suddenly became the most interesting object in the universe.

"No one TOUCHES that off button!" Nebula boomed. "We do NOT want an intergalactic incident on our hands." His voice lowered with regret that Mira was taken down in her prime, "Just focus on fixing her. I want to see ranger Nova saluting me before the end of the week."

The saddened commander turned around, passing by a bleary eyed booster and his "son" with a helmet full of water. Why the LGMs installed tear ducts into the metal contraption was beyond him, but the commander ignored these thoughts, concentrating instead on his biggest concern; "Maybe Buzz was right after all."

* * *

"This feels unpleasant," King Nova cringed.

"Well I'm _sorry_ if my energy is too cold for you to handle," Shade clearly felt no remorse. "Now try just to concentrate on the languages you've got stored in here among color schemes and other such nonsense, so the other meaningless memories don't cloud up my train of thought." After a few minutes of rummaging through his mind, she grumbled, "How many frivolous rules do you people memorize?"

"Stay on track," King Nova lectured her, "I don't want you coming across important Tangean information!" And he deepened his voice, "And those **frivolous rules** are in reality quite important to ensuring a smooth and stable government, in which we the people—"

King Nova lost the ability to speak. After sending an accusing glare towards Shade, she simply hunched her shoulders, "It's a lot easier when you don't keep making those annoying grunts come out of your mouth."

"At least I _have_ a mouth," King Nova angrily thought back, sending his rage as a beacon through his mind as loudly and obnoxiously as possible.

"That's so childish," Shade commented, while she was brushing up on Basic English. "But why would I need a mouth when I can't make any of those primitive grunts that pass for language around here."

She allowed King Nova to regain the ability to speak. Turns out his remarks sound even more annoying in his mind than in the open air. "And why can't you speak? You evolved without voice boxes or other means of sound wave based communications? How maladaptive of your race," he had been constantly trying to put her down during the entire ordeal.

"My apologies, King Nova," she mocked him, "but I'm just one of a kind. Not another shadow in sight." She paused, while shifting past the tedious records of his speeches, "And I **do** have vocal chords."

King Nova was quite confused at this point. "Is it a vestigial organ or something?"

"On the contrary," she sighed, "it was fully operational at one point." She was almost done memorizing the most common frequencies of his royal thought patterns.

"Was?" he figured that her grammar was still a little off.

"Yes, I intended to use the past tense," Shade enlightened him. She gave Nova a tired look after hearing his mind reel with questions, "Must you really know?"

"Well, if you're going through my memories," Nova justified his desire, "I see no reason for you to hide one of yours."

"Picky, picky, picky," she her voice crackled. She took her hands out of Nova's head, and pulled down the flaming collar covering her smooth black neck, earning a gasp from Nova, for across her neck, a red scar was carved deep into the jugular. "X marks the spot," she tried to make light of the situation before covering the marred flesh back up.

"Who did that?" Nova actually showed concern for his captor.

"_Who didn't_," her voice shrunk to a whisper.

* * *

"LGMs," Commander Nebula grew hesitant, "What's taking so long? King Nova should have been here ages ago after he got that message about Mira's condition. He's always arrived here at hyper speed whenever we _didn't_ extend an invitation."

"_He can't be if we never sent it_," one of the LGMs responded.

"WHAT?" Nebula was beside himself. "Do you know the repercussions of your actions? If Nova hears about this from a third party…" Nebula moaned like a wounded animal.

"It's not like they didn't try dad," XL as a photocopy machine burst his way through the crowd of LGMs. Even though that crotchety ranger (who seemed to model his temper after his Nebula's) had defected to the good side, he still knew how to make a violent entrance, pushing aside LGMs like bowling balls. "The signal just won't get through."

"I'm still not sure I trust your judgment," Nebula had a hard time accepting the wild fax machine.

XR came to his brother's defense, "For once the cook's telling the truth."

"HEY!" XL protested.

"Oh, come on, XL," XR playfully nudged his side, "you know I love ya, loose screws and all."

Nebula shook his head wondering why in deep space he was cursed with not one, but two loony machines as honorary sons. "Is this true Booster?" Nebula asked the ranger who was overseeing this transaction.

"Affirmative," he responded while diligently scanning the area to pinpoint the location of the static field blocking their transmissions. "Not even radio feed can cut through this static."

The LGMs were working furiously typing codes, pressing blinking buttons, and turning levers in their console to no avail. "_This is baaaaaaaaaaaaaad_."

"No kidding," XR laid on the cynicism. "There's no signal, no message, no apparent reason; it's like the makings of a horror movie, and the comedic relief is _always_ the first to go!" He rolled around in circles, "I don't want to be reduced to shrapnel!"

"Someone kick that overexcited wad of wires out before he hurts himself," Nebula groaned.

Booster rose from his padded seat and led XR away, "Calm down buddy, let's go visit Mira. I never got to show you the flowers I got her. They're snapdragons from planet Rhizome, and no, not the red kind…" the pair traveled out of earshot.

Nebula stared out into the distance, trying to pick out Tangea's location from amidst the millions of stars spilling across the sky, "Get Lightyear on the line. We need him now more than ever."

* * *


	10. Crash Landing

_Isolated from others,_

_Severed from your core_

_Detached from the countless lives_

_You've come to adore_

_Weeping in the gutters,_

_Withering without aid,_

_Herein lies a shadow,_

_This broken Shade_

_As you plummet into madness,_

_Are you proud of what you've become?_

_The silence is deafening;_

_The damage is done_

Buzz slowly walked through the temple's dimly lit entrance, being careful to avoid any traps that may have been set, both ancient and modern. The surroundings were covered with intricate designs and foreign symbols carved into the scenery, intermittently broken up by grotesque images of gargoyles popping out at random.

"This place just screams evil," Lightyear's instincts were as sharp as ever. As he treaded against the rough stone eroded by countless sandstorms, he noticed a scorch mark in the shape of a perfect square on the ground. "What's this?" Buzz asked aloud, as if the dismal scenery could answer him. Lightyear put two fingers on the scorch mark, collecting some fragments of soot on his fingertips. After squinting at it with calculating eyes, Buzz opened up the data pad on the sleeve of his space suit, recording this evidence. "The burnt marks appear to be recent—no more than two, maybe three hours old. Should get the LGMs to analyze this at a later date." Buzz felt along the edges of the black outline. "Even stranger," Buzz continued narrating his discovery, "there appears to be no damage to the underlying stone; it's as level as the surrounding area." Buzz swiveled his head to the wall, to see if there was some sort of ancient text that could illustrate what had happened not too long ago.

"Oh no," Buzz found a reason to validate his obsessive theories, as he saw the "Z" on a rotatable cylinder. "I knew that fiend was up to no good. These ruins could be dedicated to Zurg, or worse yet, store relics of destruction from his evil past!" As Buzz was about to go off on a tangent about how the evil emperor would never get away with whatever scheme he was planning, Buzz spotted small strip of bone white paper, stuck to the edge of the "Z" branded object. "And what do we have here?" He snatched the note. His eyes scanned the neatly printed message, written in the most elaborate calligraphy he had ever seen.

****

Annual Tradition: Steal Lightyear's newspaper every Christmas Morning, and possibly replace his coffee with mud. Filthy, filthy mud.

"That purple fiend," Buzz seethed. "That is an incredibly disrespectful thing to do, in the holiday season no less!" He furrowed his brows in contemplation. "I thought last year's brew tasted suspicious…"

Buzz shook his head, trying to divert his attention to more pressing matters. "I'll have to report this to Star Command right away. Hopefully, there are still some ships patrolling a nearby sector, and can stop by for a full sweep of the area. Zurg won't be getting away this ti—"

Buzz stopped mid sentence, as a flaming chimera of shadows and flames leapt onto his chest, snarling with a thunderous growl. Rune Dogi meant serious business.

"It's a capital crime to attack a public officer!" Buzz warned while wrestling with the creature, twisting this way and that to avoid its snapping teeth. The warning had no calming effect on Rune Dogi; rather, it caused its violet eyes to blaze with an untold fury.

The pair scuffled on the ground for what felt like years, each one trying to gain an advantage on the other. Buzz grew tired of dodging the lethal bites, instead clasping his hands tightly around its slender snout, in an effort to save his face from being chewed off. The beast remained unfazed, shifting to another tactic. It used its claws to tear Lightyear's communications relay pad to shreds, ruining any chance of Buzz delivering a request to other space rangers in the vicinity.

"Craters," Buzz cursed under his breath, "even Furbana would want to obliterate you!" Buzz kicked the animal's chest, sending the creature flying to the other end of the hall. Instead of crashing against the concrete slabs, Rune Dogi merely levitated above the ground, with his flames growing more volatile by the second.

Buzz charged at the phantom menace. He was prepared to tackle the life form and subdue it, so he could go about the rest of his inspection in relative peace. Rune Dogi just barred his teeth at Lightyear, standing its ground. If Lightyear didn't know any better, he could have sworn it was a smirk.

As Buzz drew closer, shadows were pried away from the objects in the room, coalescing around Rune Dogi's back, increasing his size until he towered over Lightyear's head. Buzz took notice of this too late to change his course. "Maybe I can use this momentum to my advantage," he dropped to his knees, sliding just under Rune Dogi's open mouth and down to the other end of the hallway, with his back to the creature's tail.

"Note to self: don't EVER get a dog," Buzz made one final joke as Rune Dogi pounced onto his back. With the human threat pinned on the ground, the dark flames started to detach themselves from Rune Dogi's fiery mane, leaving to circle around the two, faster and faster, concealing them behind a tornado of black and violet. Three revolutions later, the tornado flattened against the ground, leaving the shadows to return to their respected places, and a vacant area where the "dog" and Lightyear were fighting a not long ago; a vanishing act for the ages.

* * *

"We're just about done," Shade broke the silence that had settled between her and the king. "I'm just dissecting a few key idioms, and I'll leave you be." She shook her head in disbelief, "How strange this phrase is, 'the eye of the comet.' Comets don't have eyes! They're burning pieces of ice and rock lumped together, but it's your native tongue. I'm just learning to communicate through it."

As she was pulling her hands out of Nova's head, she brushed against a painful memory replaying over and over again at the back of the monarch's mind.

"Confounded memories," Shade inwardly hissed. "As if I don't have enough problems of my own to deal with…"

_ Outside on the surface of the planet, hidden beneath the tangled pink and bright green canopy, there lay a graveyard dotting a level plain. Most of the underbrush had been uprooted from this area a long time ago; only small ghostly white flowers dotted the landscape, softly glowing in the pale moonlight. King Nova knelt before the newest edition, all alone save for the guards who surrounded the perimeter. It would not do to have both ruling monarchs murdered on the same night. _

_ Nova went along with the council's plans, to keep him safe from harm, but he secretly wished that he went passed on with his wife so his she would not have to enter into the afterlife alone. His knees sank into the wet mud, but the grieving man didn't notice. He didn't care. The only thing that occupied his attention was the words written on the topaz colored tombstone, carved into the shape of a Tangean rose –Leila's favorite flower. King Nova couldn't help but crack a smile; Leila loved her garden dearly. She'd be happy to be buried in a place of such otherworldly beauty. And now, her spirit was able to fly through the heavens, planting stars wherever she tread._

"That is **so** illogical," the voice of reason inside Shade's head lamented, but she continued watching the memory, transfixed by its pain…

_ Nova had his hands trailing the inscription on the stalk of the "flower," feeling as if every letter was cut straight through his heart._

I'll always be with you

As you with me

In peace, I wait

For harmony

_ He clutched onto one of the delicately carved petals, as his eyes were infected with a stinging pain. "Leila," his voice rasped. "Leila, I'm at my wits end! I can't do this alone; I need you. Mira needs you." His eyes were long since dried of tears, now his pent up anger was unleashed, searching for an outlet of any sort, including the dead. _

"_Every time I look at our daughter, I see you in her walk, in her laughter, in her smile. How am I supposed to raise her, when I always end up in tears around her presence? And she's already showing signs of rebellion, of fearlessness; I'm afraid she's going to take after you straight to an early demise." _

_ Nova's muscles slacked, revealing how distressed he was, "I'll never love again, you know that don't you?" He stared into the center of the flower. "Don't you?"_

_ He started raving like a madman. "Did you ever once consider what kind of impact you'd have on our family, on our planet, after you were stripped of your life? But no, you just had to prove that there's good no matter where you look. You just had to run off to align a truce without any means of protection, to bring those commoners back into our world. You bleeding heart liberal; for all the schooling you've done, you're still so slow. You can NEVER trust a Grounder." His face grimaced in pain. "And now you've paid for that final lesson with your life..." He wrapped his arms around the unfeeling stone in one last embrace. "I'll see you soon, if all goes well. Till then, a man can dream."_

Shade forcefully yanked her head out of the man's head. She did not want to see the rest of his thoughts. Her life was already one big tragedy; she didn't want to complicate it.

"So," King Nova tersely replied, oblivious to the memory Shade had seen, "Am I free to go now?"

Shade remained quiet. She didn't know what to say.

Nova grew impatient, "Don't dillydally. I still have to organize three feasts, preside over a meeting, and strengthen the perimeters against certain heathens."

"Yes, yes you may," Shade released Nova from the chair, allowing him to move freely about.

While Nova was rubbing his wrists, she veered off to the corner, transforming back into Mira's double, "If you breathe a word about my true identity to any other creature, there'll be dire consequences."

"Of course there will," Nova groaned, "how typical."

"Oh behave," Shade muttered, trying very hard to match the lips with her audible thoughts. "I'll be in those meditating quarters for around three hours—or minutes as the concept of time is still a hazy subject to me—before I'll take my leave. I expect a small speedy ship available in the hangar for a quick departure."

"Is that all?" Nova was not in the mood for this conversation. "Would you also like a national holiday named in your honor, or some child roasting on a spit over your head?"

"Quiet you insufferable blueberry," Shade did not take kindly to his last reference to her fiery hair. "I wasn't asking for much; just a way to blend in." She flicked one of the tongues of flames from above her head straight towards the sarcastic royal.

The king shut his eyes and prepared for the worst, and was surprised to feel nothing but a cool breeze greet his face. He shot a quizzical look towards the shadow, who only shrugged, "Eh, it's a temperamental thing. If I'm mad, you'd be burnt to a crisp. If I'm feeling particularly hostile, you'd be an ice sculpture, but when I'm indifferent," she backed against the wall, "it's like I'm not even there." She dove into the shadows, leaving Nova to wonder if the whole experience had been a hallucination.

* * *

"_This is wooooooooooorse_," the LGMs piled another thick sheet of papers onto Commander Nebula's overcrowded desk. The counter creaked in protest. There was only so much weight it could hold up.

"That is **so** reassuring," XR mumbled to anyone who bothered to listen. "You guys really know how to lift a guy's emotion chip up."

"Pipe down," Commander Nebula shoved XR aside. "Let's hear what they have to say."

XR crossed his arms, mad at the indignity of the situation, "No one ever listens to the robot. It's not like he has feelings."

"_XR,_" Commander Nebula threatened.

"Fine," XR turned away, rolling out the door. "I'd rather live with mom anyway!"

"But you don't have a—craters," Nebula dropped his head in his hands as the robot dashed down the hall, looking for a maternal figure to get attached too. "So what's the problem this time?" He redirected his attention towards the LGMs.

"_Buzz is not responding_," The LGMs couldn't locate his signal. "_He's offline_."

"What do ya mean he's not online?" Nebula seethed. "That ranger always keeps his communication system open, in case anyone needs him, even that one time we forced him to go to Rhizome for a day!"

"_Signal has been corrupted_," another LGM pointed towards page 23-78 of the growing stack of files on Nebula's desk. "_It's all in the fine print_."

"This day just keeps getting better and better," Nebula groaned. "Maybe that purple pile of scrap has been playing us this whole time, just to pull a fast one on us."

Just then, Booster ran into the room, "Commander," he saluted, "Madame President is on the vid-screen. What do I say?"

"What I hate more than a bungling emperor is a bungling parliament," grinded his teeth.

"Commander?" Booster didn't quite catch that.

"Tell her not to worry; I'll send her a report as soon as one's been filed."

"Right away, sir" Booster shuffled through the crowd of LGMs and back towards the debriefing room.

"_So, about that report_?" an LGM held up the specific form required to send information to non-Star Command personnel.

"It's on my to-do list," Nebula snapped, as he shuffled towards the central database.

When he entered the information center, he headed straight for the giant computer taking up most of the space. Its mainframe stored all Star-Command related information, which included stakeouts, espionage, government matters, and a whole host of other subjects rivaling the information stored in Capital Planet's supercomputer. "It's time to find a temporary replacement. Surely the academy has at least one cadet they can spare."

* * *

Shade sat down on a polished floor, crossing her legs in a yoga stance. The room she resided in was made from high quality material, but it was completely devoid of items, as King Nova ordered all the furniture to be removed, no doubt in an effort to keep his prized possessions safe from the likes of her.

"Ha, like I'd **ever** stoop to paltry thievery," Shade rolled her eyes. "Honestly, that man is so maddening. And does his skin have to be such a bright primary color? And his hair, why from the opposite side of the color wheel? Blind me why don't you, little glorified smurf."

She shut her eyes in an attempt to meditate, dearly longing to clear her mind so she could delve into a calming state of detachment. Unfortunately, things don't always go according to plan. All she could do was sift through that accursed memory so kindly bestowed upon her by King Nova himself.

"_That poor man," Shade's heart tried to influence her thoughts. "He needs to be consoled, but how?" _

"_Not a chance," her voice of reason waged war with the remnants of her emotions. "I've already wasted enough time here as it is. As soon as the opportunity arises, I am so outta here. Must keep that appointment with Dr. Furbana, if I'm to get all the facts straight. I'm bound to have lost some information whilst I was gone." She was rooting for this side of the debate to win._

_The remnants of her heart persisted, "But you HAVE to help him. He's just a wounded creature, longing for comfort. Would it be too much out of your way to offer a fellow injured soul a bit of hope?"_

"_Yes," Shade's logic replied. _

"_Oh you're horrible!" her "good side" fumed._

"_I know; ain't I grand?" Shade rolled her eyes, while her reasonable part tried to diagnose her mental condition: a split personality. That's a shocker—not. _

"_If you insist," her heart changed tactics, "you'll just leave this hurting man alone, not offering him any hope after you frightened his one and only child to a near-death experience…"_

_Shade thought to herself, "I hate guilt." _

_That much was true. To her, that emotion was right up there with blind arrogance. _

"_So you'll do it?" her heart was filled with glee._

"_Yes. I won't be happy about it," Shade admitted defeat, "but I'll help him. Now will you leave me be?"_

"_Take a wild guess," her heart could be as sarcastic as she._

Shade opened her eyes, glowering in the process. It was clear that she wasn't going to get peace of mind today, or any other day for that matter. "Curse this conscience of mine, with its stupid disagreeable little…_obscenities_," Shade's annoyance only amused her remaining shreds of compassion.

She sighed as she rose to her feet, slinking out of the room. "Why must I be compelled to aid every suffering creature I come across? I'm no good Samaritan!"

That's where her heart disagreed.

* * *

King Nova brushed nonexistent dust off his shoulders, and proceeded to walk towards the throne room. "I can't believe that I'd be bested by a shadow. What's next; a dust bunny mutating into a ravenous rodent of destruction?" He laughed at his own joke, "As if there are _any_ dust bunnies in this spotless palace."

He kept his eyes glued to the floor as he inspected his shoes. They seemed to be slightly scuffed due to the shadows antics earlier in the day. "Drat! I just had these loafers polished this morning! Now I'm going to have to change my entire outfit!"

"Hasn't anyone told you that you need to lighten up?" a melodious voice greeted his ears.

"Who asked you—" Nova gruffly replied. It took a while for his brain to recognize the voice.

"Leila?" he gawked in astonishment as the queen of Tangea, his one true love, stood before him just as he remembered her all those years ago; with laughter infused into her spirit, a flawless complexion, and a teasing look in her eyes.

"Am I dreaming?" he rushed over to her side, clutching her in a warm embrace. He ran his fingers through her silken hair, kissing the crown of her head with great enthusiasm. Fantasies never felt this real, this warm, this perfect. "Maybe deceased?"

"No," Leila let out a delicate laugh, "You're as alive as I am." She broke away from their embrace and twirled about the room. "My, things have stayed exactly the same, except those doors are new. Do we _finally_ receive company from other worlds?" Her face lit up with joy, "May I meet them? Oh, to learn about new people and places would be fascinating! Maybe I could visit some of their planets as well…"

"But how?" Nova decided that he completely lost his mind.

"I'm guessing by ship unless some other means of transport has arisen," Leila turned her attention back towards her husband.

"No," King Nova grinned at her literal ways. He forgot that little quirk about her. "What I meant to say is why are you here?"

"I don't know," Leila responded. "It was rather strange, like a trance. I was just sort of floating and serene, and everything was filled with a warm bright light. I just drifted from one area to the next, watching Mira grow up, and you grow old, but then some black inkblot took form and whisked me away without so much as a word." Leila's eyes narrowed as she told the story. "The hands were so cold—so very cold—and I struggled as best I could to break away; the grip remained firm."

Nova's thoughts immediately returned to Shade.

"Eventually, we came to Tangea's surface, and it was such a sudden change!" Leila's eyes opened wide with confusion. "Everything was so bright, yet dull at the same time, and the gardens I had were altered; luckily I still knew my way around the trails."

"And then?" Nova wanted to hear the rest of her tale.

"It was a giant blank after that," Leila frowned, "as if the memories were wiped clean out of my head, from the time I saw a peculiar blue flower until we arrived at the palace. The black inky being—a girl perhaps—motioned for me to ghost through. I stared at the palace walls for what felt like ages, just glad to be home. When I turned around to thank that whatever it was that bought me here, she vanished just like that." Leila smiled, "Strange, isn't it?"

"Yes, very," Nova wholeheartedly agreed. Maybe that Shade creature wasn't so bad after all, but hadn't she said that she was going to depart very shortly?

"I have to go," Nova gave his wife one last squeeze before leaving the room.

"Hey, where are you going?" Leila called out from behind him.

"I've got a ship to catch!" Nova sprinted down the hall, heading off towards the launching bay.

* * *

Nova arrived at the ship readied for Shade's departure, but she was nowhere near it. The only thing inside the cockpit of any importance was a video recording saved to the basic computer.

"_Hiya King Nova," Shade obviously tried her best to sound joyful. Instead, she sounded semi-nauseated. Alas, she was never any good at acting. "As you can see, I've neglected to borrow your vessel. It would be against my best interests to turn up off world in a Tangean cruiser. Based upon your views of the world, and your lack of respect for other species, I'd imagine that Tangean technology outside of your planet would raise a lot more suspicions than a mysterious shadow."_

_ She paused as if in deep thought before returning to the speech, "When all is said and done, you get to keep your ship and your wife. How lucky are you?" Then the message dropped to a deadlier tone, "But if you ever let anyone know I was there, it would be too easy to take her away, so keep your mouth shut and head down, and you'll both be fine."_

_ She continued by coming up with a cover story for his queen, "If anyone asks why Miss Leila suddenly rose from the dead, you'll pretend that it's just her extremely distant cousin twice removed and thrice disowned. That won't be too hard to believe, based upon your policies of complete erasure of any evidence of a Tangean deemed no better than an outsider, including Tangeans who were interbred with Grounders, such as the descendents of the Darkmatter family. The powers cancelled themselves out, making them as good as trash for the 'elite.'" She sadly sighed, "Your people never were one to care for mulattos." _

_ She took a breath before continuing, "And later, when the Council objects to bringing back an outsider, you can just say it was all a big misunderstanding due to some "ape" screwing up the system. Being the noble man you are, you went back to save her from her sorry fate of waitressing the inferior species on Capital Planet. What turned into a simple rescue mission turned into something more as you gazed into each other's eyes, fell helplessly in love, and promptly got engaged. Agreed?" Without expecting an answer, Shade replied, "It's settled then. Two rings may be found in the right-hand compartment of the storage unit in the back. And yes, they're black. I never did have good taste." _

_ Shade started twirling the flames in her hair, with one of her pointed fingers, before diverting the subject, "Before I sign off, there's something you must know." Her gaze grew colder, "While I was calling back your bride, I came across some of her undesirable memories. It appears that Lord Angstrom was behind her murder, and framed the Grounders for the bloody deed. He did it so no more heirs to the throne would be conceived, and so he could instigate a complete segregation of the extreme phenotypes of the same race. This would help ensure his power in the kingdom, and he hoped it would also weaken your rule allowing him to take over. Thankfully, you defied his expectations by hanging on, growing even more zealous in your efforts. This barred him from having a complete victory." _

_ Shade didn't know how to soften that blow, so she did what she did best: cut the feed. _

Nova was shell-shocked. He didn't know what to say. How could he? His closest advisor plotted to destroy his wife, his hatred for Grounders became unjustified, and his life was restored to him all in one day. The baffled king stared blankly at the screen, transfixed by remorse, racked with guilt, and stilled by wonder as the message started to erase itself.

"_As if she was never there_," the royal mused.

* * *

A shadow speeding out of control hurtled through Karn's atmosphere, flying straight through the tangled green canopies, past confused creatures of all shapes and sizes, and straight into the stagnant waters teeming with worms and leeches among other nastier creatures.

The crash sent water hurtling in all directions, spraying ever sleeping creature within a ten foot radius, including one rather angry Narlzak that towered above the landscape. It growled as it swerved closer to the marsh to inspect what had disturbed its slumber.

A few moments passed before Shade's head popped out of the water's surface, her damp hair clinging to the sides of her face. "Confound itall_,_" she complained. "It's been thousands of years, and I **still** need to work on the landing. How depressing is that?"

The blue horned worm didn't care for Shade's qualms. It just eyed an appetizing pest that needed to be eaten—preferably alive. The creature lowered its gargantuan head right across from Shade and roared an earsplitting growl, sending her hair flapping behind her head, drying her hair in the process.

After the dull blue creature had made its point, it fixated its ravenous gaze at Shade, its dull eyes watching her every movement. The beast perked up its ears waiting for a response from its future victim, as it liked to hear the screams of its prey before feasting, but instead of shouting for mercy, Shade simply waded over to the banks until she was right in front of its hard snout, leaning against the rough surface of the bridge of its nose. Shade gave it an even more chilling look in retaliation. Her eyes glowed violently as she gave the overgrown worm an ultimatum; "Move or die."

The worm backed off in a flash, burrowing into the dirt with great speed so it could disappear from Shade's icy glare.

"That's what I thought," Shade shook her arms, brushing off the vile insects that clung to her suit. She flicked off red polka-dotted leeches, stripped beetles, and the occasional slimy slug. She stared at one of the bugs she ripped off of her boots. It was a mottled yellow brute that smiled as innocently as possible before Shade flung it to the other side of the marsh. "Stupid brain leech," she grumbled under her breath.

Once she was satisfied that every last crawling critter was off of her body, Shade took a good look around her surroundings. "Green, green, green, and what do you know, more green." She shook her head, "This is even worse than Tangea," before trudging off in a northerly direction. If memory served her right, Dr. Furbana's observation unit was a mere 10 miles away.

* * *

Ozma was slowly polishing her forest green environmental suit, with a torn blue rag bearing the Star Command logo—showing how much contempt she held toward the rangers.

She loved the eco-suit dearly, more than life itself. Not only was it a mere shield from the elements; it was a symbol of her independence, her freedom, separating her from those wretched outsiders. You could never turn your back on them, not even for a second. Before she was able to rehearse her inner speech about how the world was full of uncivilized beings more atrocious than the worst carnivorous beasts her planet had to offer, an frightened red pterodactyl of sorts clawed at her door, anxiously trying to escape some predator or other.

The antisocial scientist raced to the door and unlocked the hatch, allowing the red dinosaur to scamper into the room. "What is it now little guy?" Ozma must have treated this particular creature at least a dozen times before for a wide assortment of injuries caused by carelessness. It was a wonder how the animal escaped being eaten. "Last time you clawed at my door like that, you had a sprained wing."

She outstretched her arms and carried the shivering creature into a sterling silver cage, "Now let's look at the damage this time," She turned the animal over, inspecting each joint for hints of dislocation, each inch of thick hide for bruises. She spoke into an old-fashioned tape recorder as "There appears to be no contusions of the like, or any other sign of trauma, yet the creature is distressed. Perhaps mating season has come earlier this year, and the influx of hormones confused his young mind, as he is still in the juvenile stages of development."

"There's that, and there's the chance that it caught sight of me," Shade seeped up from the ground, leaning against the back of the room, reclining on the only chair within the cramped room. The red animal skittered back in terror behind Ozma, hoping that she would defend him from this soulless fiend.

Ozma's hands flew to the holster wrapped around her thigh, pulling a sleek orange pistol iout of the compartment. "Leave this place at once!"

"Oh come now," Shade used her telekinesis to rip the weapon from the woman's fingers. The shadow twirled the gun around her fingers, balancing its tip on her fingers. "Is that any way to treat a guest? It's a shame that common courtesy has lost its value in this day and age."

"I'll give you five seconds to get out before I'm forced to take more drastic measures," Ozma sneered at the shadowy pest.

"Relax kiddo; there's no need for hostilities. You can't afford to anger me." threw the gun to the side, leaving it to clatter into the open cage. Shade waved her hand to shut the door, locking the firearm behind rods of steel.

After seeing the look of bewilderment on Ozma's face, Shade placed her hands around the back of her head before jeering, "Now how does the kitten feel about being declawed?"

"Lucky to still have my teeth," Ozma's spat, as she slammed her fists on the table, where Shade so callously placed her feet upon stacks of data that took Ozma months to collect. "Get your feet OFF my research! You're getting sticky white petals and mud all over it!"

Shade's brows knit in irritation as she peeled off the Tangean petals, "Nefarious weeds," she hissed in irritation. "I thought I got rid of them all. And will that mud _never_ come off?"

While Shade was busy prying the petals off from her tangled flames, and turning them into ashes upon contact with her fingers, Ozma used the distraction to her advantage. The limber woman made a leap to the other side of the room, pulling the gun out from behind the bars. This time she did not hesitate to fire the contraband weapon at the trespasser.

The bullet pierced Shade's side. Her shadowy hands hid the wound from view, as her eyes dulled.

Shade grew melodramatic, "Oh the humanity; unkind to the lot of the darkling! Oh the indignity of the situation!" Shade's turned her head towards Ozma, who was now trembling with fear.

"I-it—you should never have been here in the first place!" Ozma dearly hoped that the wound wasn't fatal. She did not want to have charges for murder filed against her. That would disrupt her research. What would her poor animals do without her?

"Oh the gullibility of the audience," Shade yanked the bullet out from her side and threw it into the nozzle of the pistol, causing the machine to explode into multiple parts.

"How?" Ozma was very confused. Shade appeared to be unharmed, invigorated in fact, and yet the scientist swore she could have seen the bullet enter her flesh—if it was even flesh—and bury itself in her torso. "I saw you get injured with my own eyes…"

"Foolish child," Shade reverted back to an icy tone, "You'll have to try harder than that pitiful display if you want to get rid of me." Shade paced about the room, her gaze taking in the diplomas on the wall. Their frames were level, too level. "A little chaos is in order," Shade enacted upon her thoughts by tilting the laminated certificates to their sides.

"Do you have some plan in mind," Ozma asked aloud, "or are you just here for small talk?"

Shade grumbled, "What is up with all the sarcastic beings today. I mean really, have acerbic quips become that popular? Whatever happened to good old mind numbing fear?"

"Fear has to be provoked," Ozma quipped, "and I see nothing to be frightened of."

"Oh _really_," Shade glided over to Ozma's side with great speed, appearing to be a dark blur, stopping to hold Ozma's chin in her hand. "Hmm, how intriguing_…_" Shade inspected Ozma's face.

"Release your hand from me before I decide to rip them off!" Ozma tried to bite her hand, but Shade's grip kept her jaws shut.

"Oh hush now," Shade recognized some similarities in Ozma's features with her intended target. "Is your father at home?" Shade's eyes bore into Ozma's gaze.

"What?" the scientist was thrown off by that question.

"I presume he's your father anyway. You have the same brown hair, facial features are a 45 percent match, and you also have the very same look in your eyes."  
"Why do you want to meet with him anyways?" Ozma's curiosity was piqued.

"Because Dr. Furbana has some files of mine that I'd like back," Shade gave a vague answer. "So, is he here or not? This is apparently his residence, judging by the papers that adorn these walls."

"I'm Dr. Furbana," Ozma's voice grew colder, "the only one here."

"Oh goodie," Shade rolled her eyes. "I go looking for Lenard and instead come across his caustic progeny." She sighed, "Do you happen to know where he resides?"

Ozma's glare could have cut through steel, "He doesn't reside anywhere."

"So he's taking the path of a nomad now?" Shade grew confused.

"He's dead" she struggled to keep her eyes from tearing up.

"Oh," realization finally struck Shade. "So then, would you happen to have his remains?"

Ozma stared incredulously at Shade before shouting, "What kind of question is _that_?"

"A smart one?" Shade was unsure of where this conversation was going.

"My father was incinerated by some common thugs, reducing him to nothing but a pile of dust," Ozma's voice went raw.

"That's a pity," Shade composedly commented.

"And why is that?" Ozma regained use of her sharp words. "You wanted to feast on his corpse or something?"

"That's discrimination against shadows!" Shade did not take kindly to all these comments about her appearance. "And no, I would never eat him as I never eat period. I don't have a mouth, or can't you see that, you supposed specialist on anatomy of foreign creatures?"

"Then why would you have a problem with my father being incinerated?" Ozma tried to follow Shade's logic.

"Because you can't bring back a soul if there's nothing left to return to," Shade's voice grew softer. She rapidly changed the subject, "So, do you honestly mind so dearly if I retrieved some long overdue papers?"

"I guess not," Ozma didn't feel like she could stop Shade even if she wanted, "But you'd be wasting your time. Those criminals stole every paper he had."

"Not every last one," Shade turned her back to Ozma, feeling along the side of the wall with her hands. She kept moving about the room, sliding along the back of the wall until she felt it—a slight depression into the metal. Shade spread her fingers around the slight depression, pressing key pressure sensitive points in a complicated pattern until she heard the resounding click of a locking mechanism detaching. A puff of steam was released from the corners of a rectangular slab popping out of the wall with ease.

"I never knew…" Ozma was shocked as Shade discovered her father's hidden safe.

"Hush now, little one; let me concentrate," Shade reprimanded, while inspecting the contents. Buried beneath accounts of rare specimens and journals about his mundane life was a lone datapad. It was a red rectangular object, outmoded even when Lenard purchased it, with a square screen implanted into the center, and a wide array of orange and yellow buttons on either side of the monitor.

"It's useless, unless…" Shade slid open a hatch on the bottom of the device, and much to her relief, there was a small memory card in pristine condition inserted into the USB port. "At least that's one saving grace."

"What is this about?" Ozma inquired. "Did he discover a poaching group, a creature more stunning than the Millennial Bugs, what?"

"Before you start playing 20 questions," Shade warned, "This would be of no interest to you," Shade calmly stated.

"I doubt it," Ozma snapped back. "I always was interested in creatures both extinct and living."

Shade rolled her eyes. "You have such a disdain for sentient beings, so what good would it be to learn about one that's almost extinct?"

"Almost?" Ozma gasped, "It's about you, isn't it?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that statement," Shade might as well have been a politician at that point. "Suffice to say that I am involved."

Shade glanced at the clock on Ozma's desk, "I'll take my leave now, so you may study those darlings in peace. Hope I haven't disturbed you too much." Shade was about to delve in the shadows when an excruciating headache ravaged her mind. Shade clutched the sides of her head in pain, as her temper smoldered, "_not now!_"

"What's wrong?" some concern shone through in Ozma's voice. If Shade truly was the last of her kind, Ozma would rather have a live specimen than a dead one.

"Just…a complication," Shade would have ground her teeth in irritation, if she had them. Before Ozma could say another word, Shade sank into the shadows of the room, as if she dove into pools of black ink.

_ Trade World's as good as any place to hide, right?_

* * *

XR and Booster were all alone in the circular launching bay, awaiting orders. Normally this was a lively part of the space station, but for now, the room was as silent as a tomb; even the LGMs were cleared from the area, all working their fingers to the bone on Mira Nova's case.

"XR," Booster nudged his robotic pal, "Do you know why Commander Nebula called the two of us down here?"

"Beats me," XR shrugged, "but at the rate this week is going, he's gonna tell us which one of us is going next."

"You mean…" Booster's lower lip trembled.

"That's right buddy," XR dragged one of his fingers across his floating head in a gesture of decapitation. He felt like being cynical today. After all, Mira was dead to the world, Buzz was nowhere to be found, Zurg was awfully quiet, and XR's inner meter registered that there was a 95 percent chance of disaster with crime sprees sprinkled throughout the day.

"But good _always_ wins over evil," booster quoted Buzz. "We can't give up now! Mira will wake up soon, I'm sure of it, and Buzz will come back with Zurg behind electric bars!"

"Remember how Zurg acted the last time he dealt with electric bars," XR made sparks fly out of his eyes while mimicking Zurg's high-pitched voice, "_I am going to frighten you with my stare of dooooom_!"

Booster shivered, "Stop doing _that_. You're giving me the heebie jeebies!"

XR smiled as he bragged, "What can I say? I'm a born actor. As soon as the 'saving lives' business goes kaput, I am going on a one-way trip to Hollyworld!"

"XR, you can't be serious," Booster was alarmed. "Saving lives is what we swore to do for _life_."

"But every ranger needs a backup plan," XR commented, "and mine is raking in the dough for the best leading role award."

"What about me?" Booster wondered if there was room for him in XR's daydream.

"You can be the entourage," XR said. "You get to get loads of free stuff, travel with me, and tell me how good I look."

"How exciting?" Boosted didn't want to hurt XR's feelings, but he thought it was a lousy plan.

"I'd like to thank the Academy—" before XR could rehearse his acceptance speech, Nebula entered the scene.

"How many times do I have to tell you that you're no Hugh Laurie?" Nebula groaned. He heard XR's speech loud and clear through the air ducts. Not to self: either soundproof the ventilation system or the robot. Preferably the robot.

"Just give me a cane, a bald spot, and a surly attitude and Im an even better doctor," XR did his best imitation of the late actor.

"But you don't even have any hair," Booster commented, "So how would you have a bald spot?"

"Eh," XR shrugged, "let the makeup artist take care of that." Then he rolled around the room with his fingers forming a mock camera, "Time for my close-up!"

"Stick to the ranger business, XR," Nebula criticized his performance.

"A good actor never backs down," XR reminded him. "NEVER!" Commander Nebula rubbed his eyes, in hopes that this was a nightmare.

"Are you tired commander?" Booster noticed the bags under his eyes.

"I just pulled an all-nighter sifting through hundreds of forms just to get the correct forms to transfer the star of the Academy into our ranks a year early, and missed my morning cup of Joe" Nebula explained, "so yes, I'm tired."

"A new cadet?" XR chimed in. "Shall I take him under my wing? Teach him the steel cables?"

"The expression is ropes," Booster corrected.

"Not in this time period," XR exclaimed. "Get with the times."

"Pipe down the both of you!" Nebula's temper was shorter than usual.

"Yes sir!" Booster saluted.

XR just grumbled something about strict parents, cuing Nebula to curse the day he failed to read the work orders he signed, giving the LGMs the permission to build the robot in the first place.

"So when is the rookie joining our team?" Booster wanted to know.

"First of all," Nebula explained, "he's not getting rookie status. This young man was valedictorian of the elite class, passing with full marks. He completed his training in record time, and is more decorated than Fop Doppler and Lightyear put together."

Booster was already in awe of this character, while XR muttered that he wasn't impressed.

"Rangers," Commander Nebula cleared his throat. "May I present to you Captain Zeryll, temporarily filling in Buzz Lightyear's old position."

The demon from Zurg's nightmares stepped out into the light, wearing a Star Command uniform instead of the usual snow-white outfit. His eyes were cold and calculating. The white hair feathered around his head, and his skin gave the appearance of being carved out of ice.

"Charmed I'm sure," Zeryll grinned, baring his sharp teeth at the unsuspecting rangers.


	11. Get the Green

I'm a new soul  
I came to this strange world  
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take  
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear  
Finding myself making every possible mistake

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la  
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

See I'm a young soul in this very strange world  
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout what is true and fake  
But why all this hate? Try to communicate  
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la  
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

New soul…  
In this very strange world...  
Every possible mistake  
Possible mistake

Every possible mistake  
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes...

New Soul~Yaem Naim

Shade grumbled to herself as she floated through the dark void of space, surrounded by floating debris of OCD robots.

"I hate care-bots," Shade's eyes glowed brightly with anger. "How dare they say that I'm filthy simply because I'm a 'shady' character, with some mud from Karn sticking onto my boots, but still," she seethed.

One dented care-bot was still struggling to "clean" Shade, moving a shredded metal stick in a jerky fashion, with a damp cloth on the end. "Must clean, wipe, disinfect, rep—" it never got the chance to complete its sentence as Shade slammed her fist straight through the infuriating torture device.

"Make that robots in general, if they all act this way," Shade mumbled to no one in particular, as she continued her trip to Trade World.

By the time she arrived, zooming in through shadows and dark crevices, it was roughly midnight Capital Planet time. Shade rubbed her eyes, wanting for nothing more than a quiet place to rest her weary mind. Several loud ship collisions later, she figured that she wasn't getting peace and quiet any time soon.

"Not your standard tourist hotspot now is it?" Shade grimly laughed to herself as she walked out of the shadows that tugged at her legs, taking the moment to survey her surroundings.

She had emerged from one of the crooked alleys on Trade World. The scent of decaying takeout food mixed with motor oil, exhaust fumes, and alcohol wafted throughout the lower levels of the city. A haze of smoke and pollution rose up to the sky, shielding even the brightest stars from view. The entire landscape was covered in crowded grimy buildings, with gaudy neon signs unable to cut through the depressing dark blue scenery.

"I see three escape routes, two detours, five possible sites of ambush, and plenty of cover for me to use," she analyzed the situation through the eyes of a strategist. "But I must do something about these rags," she tugged at the edges of her fiery attire. "It will do no good to be caught in this attire, at least not if I want to be left to my own devices. Perhaps some locals will be willing to 'lend' the strange costumes they call clothes my way, or at least give me a model image to copy."

Shade hid in the shadows that covered each corner, taking great pains to avoid being seen by the strange beings swarming through the city like rats. "These people breed like chynklthras!" Shade groaned. She couldn't stand how noisy this strange world was. She longed for a quiet sanctuary to call her own, but her wishes were never granted.

After minutes of maneuvering around and between the loitering masses, weaving through shadowed corridors and behind drunkards, her anger flared up. "I can't take this nonsense anymore!" she hissed.

To the passersby around her, it sounded like another pipe had burst in someone's hover-scooter.

In an attempt to avoid the bothersome crowds, Shade flattened into her two-dimensional form and slid underneath one of the airborne buses speeding by. She clung onto the chilled metal, thankful that its black paint would disguise her form quite well.

"Next stop," the bus driver yelled as the last passenger climbed onboard, "Apartment Sections B-67."

"And the quasars away from here," Shade added lib.

* * *

Zurg was tapping his finger on the ancient screen, after he had wiped away those icky cobwebs. He let out a sigh of annoyance as his eyes bored right through the ancient hourglass symbol, as it spun round and round, letting grains of digitally produced sand slosh around its interior, as the incredibly slow internet was preparing to upload the desired website.

Zurg waited in front of the ancient computer for as long as his patience allowed—three and a half seconds to be precise—before he lost his temper.

"Stupid machine. WHY WON'T YOU RUN?" he shouted at the infernal device, hoping that his furious tone would scare the machine into working more quickly.

If only to spite him, the screen chose that moment to freeze; the hourglass stuck sideways.

"You waste of izzard-bytes," Zurg's voice was teetering between enraged and insanity before he rubbed his temples in thought. The strained emperor started talking to himself in third person, "Calm down, Zurgie old boy. These types of situations need a certain finesse, a graceful quality if you will, to deal with uncompromising technology."

With that advice in mind, Zurg repeatedly slammed both his hands into the sides of the monitor, shaking the antique device until its microchips trembled. "WORK HARDER you wretched contraption, **HARDER**!"

Zurg angered the machine, which had been programmed with a very strict artificial intelligence. And each of its data chips processed Zurg as a threat. A very annoying threat. With this information realized, the machine shot out countless wires from small holes permeating the walls; the lines snaking their way around his body.

"ACK! I don't remember accessing LimeWire!" try as he might the evil emperor could not squirm out of the net of tangled wires surrounding him. Instead of some normal antique safeguard, like Firewall, Zurg had encountered the sadistic inspiration for that particular safety feature: Wirewall.

The wires looped around his wrists and ankles, reeling him into the wall with great force. The sound of impact echoed throughout the walls, rebounding loudly onto Zurg's ringing horns. Cracks crisscrossed all along the wall at the site of impact.

As Zurg was tied up for the moment, the website finally loaded, full of the information Zurg was searching for. The screen blinked at Zurg to get his attention.

"Ugh," he tried to shake away the planets revolving around his eyes, "For all the times for it to load, it chooses _now_."

But the machine wasn't through tormenting him just yet. Even though it was as old as dirt, it still had a teasing nature, sending cables straight out of the mainframe into the hair, dangling in front of Zurg's eyes. Sparks of electricity jumped out of the open ends, just waiting to zap Zurg.

"Ummm," the emperor was starting to get nervous, "it may have sounded like I thought you were a pile of mangled machinery, but I actually think you're only semi-deranged?"

That did it; the machine was going to seriously enjoy messing with its latest victim.

"What are you doing with those—NO, by all that is foul and malignant, don't go _THERE_!"

The cables paid him no attention as they clamped onto the horns on his head, sending electric impulses down his horns and into every fiber of his being.

"I've heard about people getting hooked to their electronics but this is _ridiculous_," Zurg complained as electricity started flowing through the wires, crackling with fiery energy upon contact with his very conductive horns.

"_This is an ouuuuuuuutraaaaaaaage!_" Zurg sounded like he was short-circuiting, and he wasn't even part machine. At least the pain only lasted five minutes, although the wiring was able to extend the agony for days, but an older recognition system finally recognized Zurg's behavior and matched his genetic fingerprint with one of the beings that was authorized into this temple, shutting off the defense mode.

Zurg groaned as his muscles slackened against the chords of metal binding him to the wall. While gingerly rubbing his hands along his horns, he tried to nurse his wounded pride with false confidence, "It's about time. No one can withstand my will."

A computerized voice took the opportunity to speak to the emperor, "This is a shocking turn of events." Apparently it came equipped with its own twisted sense of humor.

"Ha ha ha," Zurg was clearly not amused. "To what do I owe the displeasure?"

"I am unit 1.0769 lambda g," the older remnants of the central AI overpowered the smaller unit, which was still peeved at Zurg for pushing its buttons literally.

"And what are you going to do now," Zurg half-laughed, half-panicked, "Leave me hanging?"

"Negative," it tersely responded.

"Then what?" Zurg would have gladly used his laser vision to cut through the bondages sticking him against the wall, but his nerves were still too frazzled by the electrical shocks to make water boil.

"I was constructed to store knowledge on all of the prisoners," its wheels rumbled from disuse, as they turned against layers of rust, "as well as their caretaker; our caretaker."

"And let me guess," Zurg rolled his hand through the air. "You're going to taunt me with the knowledge just outside my reach, right?"

"Not exactly," the computer sent signals to the wires still attached to Zurg's head, and started sending a stream of data through them, adapted to the signature impulses of his brain.

"What's going on?" Zurg grew confused as a series of ones and zeros seemed to be dancing across his line of vision.

"Downloading sequence initiated," the machine dulled to a monotonous tone. "Stage one complete." it ominously hissed, "Stage two, the transfer."

"Transfer? I didn't authorize any transfer." Zurg's eyes widened in fear as an all too familiar power source coursed through his horns once more.

"_I haaaaaaaate ruiiiiiiiiiiiiiins_!"

* * *

Shade leapt off of an apartment roof, with a bundle of oddly colored clothes in her grasp, and a senile old geezer on her heels. He pointed a black and green cape at the thief.

"Git back 'ere you no goo' ro'en Batman!" screamed an alien with green hair, a purple tuxedo, and a red tie with yellow polka-dots. Face-makeup was smeared all across his face. Both of his obnoxiously large mouths had silly paddy stuck onto the corners of his smiles. "Don' you wanna know 'ow I got these 'ere scars?"

"They're bogus," Shade muttered while running down the edge of the building, "Much like your concept of reality."

"Wait till 'arlequin ear's abo' this un," the old geezer gave up on the chase, as he believed his old arch nemesis leapt to his death just to avoid tangling with the clown. "Batman jumps to 'is doom, just cuz a lil ol' me. Hee, hee, hee!"

Shade shook her head as used her legs to push off the building, using the momentum to leap into an adjacent structure. The people in this city were crazier than she thought.

She didn't have much time to contemplate how insane things had gotten in this strange new world, as she shot straight through an open window, ducking her head and rolling as she hit the ground. She lay on her back for only a second, thinking about how much easier it would be to just head back and put up with the much less colorful Octopi race before she shook the notion out of her thoughts. "I made a pledge and I swear I'm sticking to it, no matter how much I will regret it."

She noticed some rats crawling alongside the rundown apartment she now found herself in.

"Make that regret, present tense," she lamented her situation before forcing herself to sit upright, no matter how her muscles were protesting. "Huh, they never complained before," but she paid no heed to that small detail. Instead, she focused on picking out a slightly respectable outfit from the piles of clashing plaid, striped, and polka-dotted clothes she swiped from the crazy loon. "At least he's so crazy, no one will take his news about me seriously." She squinted her eyes in thought, "Then again, I'm not sure he even takes himself seriously."

As she looked through the pile of clothes, she found some sequined masks, and fishnet stockings among the bundle. "What does he even need those gaudy stockings for—never mind," her brain already concocted horrible images of him wearing women's clothing. Somehow, she felt it suited that old geezer, or was there a woman under all that face paint? The clothes she or he was wearing were baggy, so it was too hard to tell, and the voice could go either way.

Half an hour later, Shade came up with the most presentable outfit she could find. She was dressed in midnight blue and faded purple striped leggings, black loafers, a dark olive green long-sleeved shirt, a burnt orange scarf wrapped completely around her neck matching the gloves she wore to cover her hands, and a long grey trench coat. She didn't bother to button the jacket, preferring it to be loose, so it could flap freely in the wind if a gust was ever strong enough. "Almost like wings," her eyes got a distant gleam in them, "but I'm no angel. More like a vampire bat: misunderstood and hated till the bitter end." She paused in thought, "Hmm, maybe that loon was onto something," before topping her outfit off with a floppy maroon beret. It was a little large, but allowed her to tuck all of her hair inside.

"Now all I have to do is alter the appearance of my face and I'm good to go," she closed her eyes, concentrating on subtle traits from the hundreds of people she passed by while stuck under the bus, before coming up with a combination she approved of. Her face still retained her sharp features, but changed to a creamy shade of light green, with a few strands of black hair peeking out from under the beret. As for her eyes, she changed them to a dull red. As for the mouth, she settled for thin light pink lips. No need to go plumping them up. She could do without the catcalls.

She thanked whatever spirit cared to watch over her (even though in her opinion it was doing a lousy job) that she didn't have to waste valuable energy keeping up a disguise. Altering the color of one's skin is a paltry trick to completely mimicking their entire form, as she had done when she passed herself off as Mira. Shade had a feeling that she would need it later.

Now all Shade had to do was venture outside the empty room and into the callous masses, in a desperate attempt to blend in until the whole "destroy all shadows" mantra at Star Command blew over.

"Suddenly I think I'd rather be sparring with the mentally unstable jester," she moaned, as she forced her feet to descend the creaking wooden staircase, and out into what passed for sunlight in this dreary place.

* * *

The fog of pain cleared from Zurg's mind, as he found himself in a different room, or rather, and earlier memory. It was painted black and silver, with crimson rugs and curtains hanging everywhere. Zurg looked around for the earlier version of himself, hoping to have at least someone to follow through what he took for his past. He was surprised to see a mirror—he hated mirrors, having banned them in Planet Z long ago—and in the reflection, he realized that he _was,_ for all intents and purposes, the younger version of himself. He had seemed to only a head above Lightyear's height, with shorter horns and a leaner frame.

"I must be going insane," Zurg groaned. As if he received an epiphany, his eyes lit up with enthusiasm, "That's it! I've just cracked. Any minute now, Warp will send for Dr. Animus, and he'll set everything back to normal."

Zurg waited for what felt like a few minutes before he gave up on that theory and accepted the more ominous. "As long as I'm trapped inside these recovered memories, I may as well learn more about my past. It's what started this confounded mess in the first place."

Zurg looked about the room until his eyes lay upon his prize: an electronic tablet sticking upwards from a pole drilled into the ground. As much as Zurg felt reluctance towards using computers again, they couldn't hurt them in his recollections of his history now, could they?

Zurg walked towards the device labeled N.A.N.A. in bold golden letters standing for the Natural Archives of Noting the Ages.

"Huh, and here I always thought of Nana as a person," Zurg wandered over closer to the machine, placing his hand on the screen. A tingling sensation ran along his fingers as the machine scanned his handprint for recognition.

"Prince Zadok," the feminine voice stated.

"Yes, I very well know who I am, and HEY, why are you ignoring me, you little ungrateful—" Zurg soon realized that you can't carry out a conversation with these machines.

The voice continued undeterred by Zurg's opinions, "Status: exile, son of deceased Queen Zara number 21 and living Lord Fajer."

"How did she die?" he stooped to typing in the question onto the alien keyboard written in a language only he seemed to recognize.

"Searching…searching…" the machine started to vibrate as it hummed, "execution."

"That's just peachy keen—wait what?" Zurg was startled by that tidbit of information. "And the reason being?" he all but broke the keyboard with the force of his typing.

"I do not understand. Restate the question, or reboot and try again later," this machine was as soulless as ever.

"Why in the cosmos was she killed?" Zurg tried to keep himself from smashing his fist straight through the vexing device.

"Processing request," the computer hummed.

"And?" Zurg was growing impatient.

"Calibrating answer," a series of clicks went off inside the machine.

"Get _on_ with it!" Zurg was growing rather impatient.

"Said queen attempted to flee the concubine with young heir number 125 in tow, her reasoning being that she did not wish to see her offspring stripped of his true heritage as the rest of the Zinnia were 'advancing' by leaving behind all the old stories and ways of olden days, before the great evacuation, and that she was part of a group that resisted re-colonizing a planet that harbored sentient life forms already, no matter how barbaric they may be."

"And how did Fajer feel about all this?" Zurg hissed his father's name with extreme revulsion.

The computer paused as it searched through forgotten documents. "The Emperor had decreed to destroy remnants of the past ages, and all those who adhered to the backward views. His empress was only one of thousands that had shared the same fate."

"How'd he justify that?" Zurg's voice grew less interrogating and more fearful.

The machine brought out a specific quote of the Emperor's views. "Quote: We cannot feel anything but nostalgia for the past, which does nothing but hamper our future progression. Our technology helped us escape our home planet before the star went supernova, and our advances will sustain us into the future. It is time for us to give up our wandering days and recreate a civilization that rivals that of our ancestors. If we have to crack a few icicles to get our way to prove our dominance and superiority, then by all means, let's fight ice with fire. So I say it, so shall it be."

The computer concluded its research project, "The lord had decided to settle the Horned Zinnians onto a planet in this galaxy once and for all."

"And which planet did he have in mind?" Zurg questioned, even though he already had a place in mind.

"?" was the computer's answer.

"What planet did he choose to settle on?"

"Planet Xrghthung," came the cold response.

"Huh?" Zurg had a feeling he heard that name before, but from where he did not know.

"Xrghthung is what his grace will rename Planet Z," the computer's screen faded to black, "the planet of Zephyrs."

* * *

Shade pulled the collar of her jacket tightly around her neck as she walked past mindless groups of people. They took no heed of her, apparently used to oddly dressed aliens from all cultures passing through this gritty city. She kept her head down, her eyes making sure that she didn't step on some of the more unflattering substances that littered the floor.

While she was busy avoiding the unidentifiable sludge on the ground, she managed to bump into the slimiest person on Trade World, Crumford Lorak.

The brown wart-covered alien fell to the ground, landing on his big misshapen nose. His orange hair somehow remained slicked back, due to all the moose, sweat, or some unhealthy combination of the two."Hey, watch where you're going pal," he frowned, revealing his sharp yellow teeth while he wiped his hands down his greasy maroon jacket. "Stolen merchandise like this doesn't come cheap."

"Oh, my apologies," Shade didn't mean to knock anyone off balance. "I just didn't see you there."

"You got manners?" he cast Shade a sidelong glance—the glance of opportunity. "So you're green to Trade World, eh?"

"Well, if you mean my skin's green…" Shade obviously didn't get the expression.

"Stop being a smart-aleck," Crumford huffed, before regaining what he thought was a gentlemanly composure. "See here?" He gestured to the surrounding people, "they can do wrong by you, but for a price, I can give you some pointers on how to avoid trouble."

Shade narrowed her eyes, "Something tells me that you don't work for free."

"Aha! We've got a smart one on our hands," Crumford laid the flattery on thick. "And yes, I only work for green."  
"Is this another comment about my skin?" Shade prepared herself to slap him silly.

"Not on your life," Crumford slapped his large hand to his face; the three fingers pulling at his hair. "MONEY! Show me the money!" He shouted, rubbing his three fingers together. Based on his ashy complexion, Shade thought that if he rubbed any harder, his fingers would light on fire. Push come to shove, she could always hasten the process.

"One condition," Shade lowered her voice to a whisper.

"And what is that?" the shifty being was almost afraid to ask.

"What _is_ money?"

Crumford wrinkled his snout in disgust, "You are _soooo_ new to Trade World; I can smell it!"

"Don't they have a cream for that?" Shade remembered catching sight of an advertisement from a magazine on the ground, with Vicki Vortex on the front cover. "The pink haired maiden seems to like it enough to endorse it."

"Just my luck to pick up a charity case," Lorak's beady eyes stared at his gnarled fingernails, as he tried to turn the girl naïve of shady business dealings into an asset.

* * *

Zurg got a sudden sense of foreboding. "He can't seriously go against the Zephyrs, can he? I've read the inscription! I know how it ends..."

The computer printed out a paper and shot it at him. Zurg took the papers, not surprised by the terse message typed onto the slip.

**Brush up on your history.**

Zurg just crumpled the paper into a ball and shoved it back up the printer, muttering "No one asked you," and getting a twisted sense of pleasure as the machine whined in protest.

The evil prince took a moment to watch the computer struggle with the paper jam before focusing on warning his father of the danger. The emperor raced through the halls, thanking his lucky stars that he was a fast healer. The wounds he received from his previous discussion with daddy dearest were already beginning to fade away.

Zurg sprinted down the spindling halls left and right, down and off to the side, wishing for once that his father didn't make the hallways so long and pointless. By the time Zurg caught site of the imperial doors, adorned in gold and all manners of rare gems, a hand reached out from the darkness and grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.

"Where do you think you're going?" the guard stepped out into the light, revealing a brute towering over the little prince. His purple muscles were bulging beneath the red plated armor that adorned his torso. A flap of black chainmail hung across his legs, like a skirt with a slit at each side running up to the hip bone. Silver leggings covered his legs from indecent exposure, blending in with his slender slippers.

The arms were bare, decorated in strips of gold and rubies covered cloth that signified his status as a royal guard, as well as the golden strips of cloth that covered his evil grin from view. The eyes glowed a menacing red color, signifying how he was preparing to let the shamed prince eat hot UV rays. A black formfitting helmet with red flames painted along the sides covered the rest of the guard's head, going smoothly along the contours of his cranium, only allowing the horns to stick out through the material.

As for his horns, they were tipped with pure silver, a symbol of favoritism from the present Emperor. The guard was always one to follow orders, including the newly made one to make certain that the unwanted heir was either cast out into the empty void of space, or into the gallows. It didn't make much different to the Emperor.

But it wasn't the impressive suit that captured Zurg's attention. Rather, it was the weapon the guard clasped in his metallic hands. The steel staff was covered in etchings of constellations marking a map of where the Zinnians had been, and to where they were going—Planet Z. The designs grew more and more complicated until they ended in a large blade at the top that was made into the shape of a hoary flame. It was sharp enough to cut through diamond with ease, and would not think twice of slicing a dishonored prince into pieces.

"You are supposed to be in your ship making the final preparations for your trip if I'm not mistaken," the guard was enjoying every second of this.

"But I just have to speak with my father," Zurg wasn't used to pleading. "It's of utmost importance!" His eyes grew cloudy. "This may be the last memory I have of him, and I sure don't want it to be ruined by the likes of you!"

The guard's laser beams shot right in front of Zurg's feet, creating a hole straight into the lower level. "That was just a warning shot," the guard dictated, "but if you come around these parts again, I assure you that you'll have a worse fate."

"But you don't understand," Zurg whined. He was also unaccustomed to not getting his way. "If he goes after the Zephyrs all this will be destroyed!"

Two more guards crept up behind the emperor, grasping both his arms in a strong hold. "Escort him to his speeder," the royal guard commanded with an air of superiority, "and be sure that he never reenters this ship again, or so swear I, I will cast the lot of you into space without so much as a space suit to call your own."

And so the proud prince, kicking and wailing, was dragged into the harbor.

* * *

"That place looks awfully seedy," Shade didn't trust Lorak.

"No, no, no," Crumford groaned at Shade. "You're looking at it all wrong." He spread his arms out wide under the neon sign of the _Baby Cakes _pastry shop, "You gotta see the big picture."

"What picture?" Shade grew peeved. "Was it taken by satellite or a digital camera? I demand to see the photographer!"

Crumford muttered a few choice words under his breath.

"I have ears like a hawk," Shade reminded the skittish man. She knew when she was being insulted, but not exactly how, "and what in blazes is a screwy b—"

"Words like that don't come out of a lady's mouth," Lorak tried to hush her up. "Now lookee here, you didn't have to follow me over to this tavern in the first place."

"You practically dragged me here," Shade rubbed her wrist with malice. "Something that I would have decked you for, had I not been more concerned about finding a bathroom to wipe that filth you call 'natural cologne' off of my person."

"You can wash up inside, you uppity…" he trailed off after seeing a particularly harsh glare.

"By all means, go on" the threat in Shade's voice came through crystal clear.

"You-you've got agility?" it was the best he could come up with on such short notice, and under duress.

"You can rhyme, I grant you that," Shade pushed away from the grease ball, "but I no longer require your services. I can do quite well on my own!" In her haste, she forgot about how the slightest touch from that creature revolted her, grabbing his arm and twisting it with pleasure. "Now be contrite."

"I give I give!" Lorak pleaded for mercy.

"That's not an apology," she stated coldly.

"Fine, I'm sorry, now give me back my arm!" he wailed.

"Very well; I suppose that's the best you can muster up," Shade dropped him on the ground like yesterday's trash before walking in the opposite direction. She didn't have the slightest idea of where she was going, but anywhere was better than here.

Some time elapsed before she wandered into a bar. It was a scruffy place, with many blaster marks in what little furniture survived an all too recent brawl, and broken glasses littering the ground, but it was good enough for her. She quietly slipped into the dark tavern and seated herself on a wobbly stool, after taking care to wipe down the seat.

"This entire planet can use a couple hundred of those care-bots. I shouldn't have smashed them after all," she sighed, while leaning her arms on the counter. The tabletop seemed clean enough, with some dust covering that particular corner. At least it meant it hadn't been used in a while.

She let her head lean onto her hands as she pondered what to do. "Maybe I can track down one of those merchants, and see if I can persuade them to lend me a vehicle. I'd rather risk my chances with an army of Zephyrs than hang around this sorry lot anymore than I have to."

Just then a lumbering yellow several eyed alien caught sight of Shade, stretching his four arms in anticipation. "Hey there sweetheart," Torque shot a cocky grin her way. Shade made no reaction. She was far too engrossed with her own thoughts to pay him any mind.

"Buddy, I don't think you caught that babe's attention," a Torque clone let out a defiant smile at the original, with the same biker's accent. "But I might."

"Back off Tortellini," the original shoved the clone to the side, having fun horsing around. "I laid eyes on her first."

"But as you know, pal," another clone laughed from the sidelines, never lifting his gaze from the wrestling match of the female variety playing on the adjacent holovision, "Can't prove squat in a court of law without the evidence baby, 'less you bribe the judge."

Before their animated discussion broke out into another brawl, a Grounder clad in dark blue armor spoke up from the sidelines, "Why don't you let the little lady decide?" He smirked, "Though in my opinion, you three are wasting your time."

The trio of Torques cast their eyes down at the person who dared insult them, "You're gonna pay for that one, pretty boy." The torques had their guns out and ready for action. "Gimme one good reason why I shouldn't kick your can back to Unfriendly Space."

"The gal you were after took it upon herself to sneak out the back door," Romac winked. "If you hurry, you may end up catching her."

The Torques looked around, and upon seeing her vacant seat, they eyed Romac with distilled hostility, "Lucky for you we like us a good chase," before they pushed each other right out of the smudged glass doors, trekking down the alleys like a bunch of drunkards.

Romac walked up over to Shade's stool, and peered over the counter's edge. "Now what's a young girl like you doing all the way down there?" He playfully bantered with Shade, who had taken cover behind the counter while the bartender was on one of his smoking breaks.

"Trying not to get into an arm-wrestling competition," she stood back to her feet, shaking the dust of her coat, "but more importantly, thanks for not ratting me out."

"How could I?" Romac leaned back into his seat that didn't have a backing, making him fall over the edge and onto his back. Shade stifled the chuckles in her throat. She couldn't go around giggling like some lighthearted soul without a care in the world. It was completely out of character, no matter how humorous the situation was.

"Need a hand?" She didn't wait for an answer from the embarrassed mercenary as she pulled him up back to his feet.

"Whoa, you're strong for a—" he didn't complete that sentence.

"What? Girl?" she laughed, "I thought you'd be used to them by now, seeing as you used to date Mira Nova."

A panicked look flashed across Romac's face. "How'd you know about her?"

"It's a long story," she was vague on purpose. After all, how could she explain that when Mira entered her head, Mira glimpsed only fragments of her life, while she had seen every part of the princess's?

"But don't worry," she reassured him, "I won't tell."

Romac rubbed the back of his neck, "Good, because the last thing I would want is for others to think I'm going soft."

"Then you won't get many employers now, would you?" Shade deduced.

Just then, Romac's communicator blinked, and brain pod 57 showed up on the screen. "Hey there Romac! It's your sidekick here. I just got some new information on the package we're supposed to deliver and what is that?" his eyes widened as he saw Shade in the corner who meekly waved, all the while hoping that he didn't see through her disguise. "What are you doing with a girl? She could be a spy of some sort, or blab about our business to all corners of the galaxy!"

"Calm down, 57," Romac scolded him. "Don't work our neurons into a knot. I'll be back with you in a sec, after I finish a conversation with this fine woman."

"But _Romac_," 57 whined.

"I never leave a job or a conversation unfinished," Romac replied before cutting the link.

"So," Shade really didn't want to seem too nosy now, lest it scare Romac away, but she couldn't help herself, "I heard Torque muttering something about Unfriendly Space. Care to elaborate?"

Romac prepared himself to spin a long yarn about how heroic he was. Before he could start his sentence, Shade muttered, "And no lying."

"How'd you know I was going to stretch the truth?" he eyed her curiously.

"You opened your mouth," Shade tartly replied.

"We seem to have got ourselves a joker on our hands," Romac grinned widely.

"Please," Shade shook her head, "don't say 'joker' around me."

"Why not?" Romac was amused.

"I've dealt with enough of clowns for a lifetime," she was honest, "plus the afterlife."

"Then you shouldn't be in Trade World," Romac shrugged his shoulders. "So, what do you want to know about my last visit to Zurg?"

"You knew I'd get to that?" Shade's curiosity was piqued.

"Everyone does," he let out a world-weary sigh. "So you want to know how I fought my way through his countless stingers, beetles, and hornets, fending off his laser blasts left and right, and shooting him with my own special brand of brain waves?"

"No," Shade replied.

"Good," Romac answered back, "because that never happened."

After receiving a quizzical glance from Shade, he continued, "He could have killed me. He should have killed me. In fact, I think he would have killed me, but he didn't." Romac flexed his arms behind his head. "He just sort of stared at me with this 'I can't believe I fall for all these suckers' look before he let me go."

"Just like that?" Shade wondered.

"Just like that," Romac stared off into the distance. "I know he's the galaxy's baddest villain, but I can't help but feel that he just can't stomach the thought of killing someone in cold blood. He had every reason to hate me, as I went back on our little deal, but he just couldn't make that headshot." Romac returned to his more laidback mood, "And don't you dare say that it would have been a large target."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Shade smiled. "You wouldn't believe how many comments I get."

"It's not easy to be green I take it," he assumed.

"Something like that," Shade returned the smile as she got to her feet. "Well, I'd best be going, but thanks for a stimulating conversation."

"Anytime Ms.…hey, I never did catch your name," Romac just realized that.

"And you're not going to," Shade bid him a good night before leaving through the revolving doors. "If I have my way, no one will."

* * *

Buzz opened his eyes slowly, which was no easy feat since he was blessed with the biggest migraine of his life, throbbing in agony.

"Oh my aching head," he groaned. "It feels like XR landed on my skull _again_." Buzz rubbed his eyes, "I swear it's like he does it on purpose."

It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the room, full of white and green. The place was tidy; not a speck of sand to be found. "What?" He rubbed his eyes, hoping to rub away what he thought was a hallucination. After a good five minutes, he reopened his eyes to his room—his house on Capital Planet. "How the heck did I get here?" Buzz wondered to himself. "And where'd that dog run off to?"

Buzz leaned back against his stiff couch, his head thudding against the wall. He realized his mistake as soon as he contacted the wood. "As if I needed that," Buzz grumbled at his lack of foresight. While he was massaging the back of his head, his hands brushed against chips of white paint that stuck to his slick purple hood.  
His eyes popped wide open. "OK, I know I bumped my head against the wall, but not that hard..." Lightyear got to his feet, turning around to see what was wrong with the wall. He was taken aback by the sinister threat leering back at him, carved straight through layers of metal, wood, and wires.

**_If you keep digging, you'll be six feet under._**


	12. Win Loses Out

_((Sorry about the long wait! We're halfway there. It just isn't right to leave a story hanging. I've decided to come out of retirement and continue it.))_

_**Zurg**: It's just so hard to find good fanfic authors these days _

_**Me**: Well at least you HAVE authors. Ungrateful purple imp._

_**Zurg**: That hurts *hands over his heart in mocking fashion*_

"Unhand me you cretins!" Zurg continued to fight against the guards powerful arms. That only incited them to squeeze all the tighter, making his arms go numb from the elbow down. Zurg tried to hold back his tears as their sharp claws dug into his soft purple skin.

"Is there anything else you'd like to tell us, oh lowly Zadok?" the shorter of the two guards hissed; his chilling voice growing deep with hostility.

"Would it kill you to use a nail file? Honestly, your claws are atrociously long. I know this item—" before Zurg could finish offering the guard to buy a part of his future stocks in the cosmetics department, the other guard promptly pinched the tip of Zurg's sensitive horns, sending waves of painful stimuli along the opposite side of his body.

No sooner had his claws scrapped along the sides of Zurg's horn, electric impulses went shooting through his nerve cells, causing him to feel like his very cells were being eaten alive by acid.

"YEOOOOW!" Zurg's voice screeched. The pain was so great that it caused his limbs to grow limp.

"That'll teach you to mock us, your newly dictated superiors," the taller minion laughed, straightening all those clumps of keratin into a grisly smile. He was clearly enjoying boasting his newfound power over the royal screw-up.

Zurg kept his head bowed as he struggled to keep up with the guards' pace. It wasn't easy when one of your legs was still tingling with phantom pain. He concentrated on the floor, staring at the plaster between the tiles.

"Ha, that got him to shuddup," the taller more violent guard slurred the last word. "But you know, I'm actually gonna miss having this fool to push around. The other royals are just as cold and calculating as the Emperor, Spirits bless his soul."

_Was the tile bluish gray or grayish blue? _These are the thoughts that occupied Zurg's mind. It was better than paying attention to the grim state of affairs that threatened to strangle him.

"But there's always a black reptile in the family," the shorter one presumed. "Wonder if he can get lost inside a black hole…"

_Hmm, were these terracotta tiles, or marble? _

"Now now," the lanky guard waved a finger at his comrade, "we can't get everything we want."

_Bah, what did it matter? If Zurg had his way, he'd cover the whole mess in a lovely purple carpet. Violet maybe, with bright yellow embroidery. Yes, that would be much better._

"But the Emperor, Spirits bless his soul, sure can!" the stouter guard reminded his partner. He had one too many bars of zirconium, and his waistline was paying the price.

As the guards drifted into a random tangent, a lengthy slender being stepped out from the shadows, pulling the collars of the guards oblivious to their surroundings. The guards continued walking, only to be pulled backwards with two sharp tugs, sending them to the back wall.

They let go of Zurg, who stumbled backwards, caught in the stranger's arms. Zurg stiffened at the touch. "Who is this guy, and why do I feel like things are going to get even worse?"

Once the tall Zinnian was certain that the prince could stand alone, he glided over to the other guards, towering above them. This tall savior was at least nine feet tall—or three columns if you get into their X-centeric system.

"Who dares to lay a hand on the seed of the emperor?" the robed Zinnian stood with his spine erect, facing the guards who had the hatred momentarily cooled off from their eyes. The voice was dual toned as well, but much louder. That guy did have a large lung capacity to pack a punch behind his strong vocal chords.

His royal-blue robes were gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights, with black sequins outlining the entire ensemble; the mark of a Chief Counselor. Only seven were able to attain that prestigious honor, through work involving foreign matters, security, and upholding the law.

Zurg stared at the Zinnian's back, trying to put a name to his savior, while the guards were stammering. "We-we have orders, and we follow them!" the stouter guard exclaimed.

"From the head honcho himself," the taller one gained more confidence, "and if I remember correctly, he ranks higher than you."

"And if you remembered your basic training correctly," the Counselor sneered, "you'd remember that exiling others is a long process, and requires going through the courts, which is under my jurisdiction."

"But the Emperor—" the Counselor interrupted before the guards could produce more dribble from their mouths.

"The Emperor is but a mortal who is also subject to the will of our laws," the Counselor reprimanded them. "They were put in place before his grandparents were even born, and they'll be in place long after his death."

The taller guard shouted. "You speak of his death? MUTINY!"

"You fool," the Counselor struck a sound blow on the side of his face, leaving an indigo bruise to form in the shape of a fist, "It is not against the honor codes to speak of a fact. Everyone dies at some point and time, you incoherent pile of blubbering lack wits."

The other guard implied a threat, "So what do you wish for us to tell the Emperor? Hmm?"

"The Counselor crouched down until his blazing red eyes were an inch from the guard's. "Tell him that if his antics are rash enough, I will be sure to organize the Council to strip him of his power and send _him_ into the throes of deep space!"

His voice grew lethal, "Now get out of my face, before I tutor his young highness about the art of autopsy." His clawed fingers tapped lightly against each other.

The guards didn't need to be told twice; they hightailed it back to their barracks.

"Now that's better, wouldn't you agree Prince Zadok?" the Counselor turned his attention to Zurg.

Upon seeing the cold glint in the Counselor's eyes, the rigid way in which he stood, holding his lengthy spine erect over the shorter Zinnians, and the frown that permanently held some hints of sneer in the strands of keratin, Zurg knew.

"ÆTHELWINE," some relief showed through Zurg's features. "It's you!" The younger Zurg ran to the Counselor, giving him a strong hug.

"Unwanted…physical contact?" the Counselor warned. He did not like being touched, least of all by a spawn of the Emperor.

"Oh, sorry; I forgot," Zurg sheepishly grinned. Nothing could put a damper on his mood. It was his one ally—or at least the one person who treated him justly, who defended him in spite of the Emperor's distaste.

"It's alright, young Zadok," the Counselor tried not to sound disgusted as he pulled off Zurg's strong grip from his arms. It was nothing against Zurg perse—he was never one to shake hands let alone 'embrace' someone in an eager fashion. "So, what did you do this time to get your father to completely lose his senses?"

Zurg shifted on his feet, "Honestly?"

"Honestly," the Counselor replied.

"I told him what a giant fool he was," Zurg answered, "among other things."

It was a moment of tense silent before the Counselor broke out into a lukewarm laughter, "That old cod; even his son is disillusioned by his actions." He grew more distant, "Good for you, sticking it up to that uncultured brute. A title does not a savvy mind make."

"Don't we all know it," Zurg replied, as he thought of the Emperor's serious lack of self-control.

ÆTHELWINE, also referred to as Win, sadly nodded to the neglected prince. "Follow me. I suppose you can use my quarters for the time being, until we bring some form of enlightenment to his stubborn head—but it's only temporary mind you."

And so the Counselor took long strides down the twisting hallways, as Zurg trailed after him.

* * *

Zeryll felt like banging his head into the nearest wall. "Why in the cold expanse of space did I have to get saddled with those two ninnies?" he silently fumed to himself, as he sat squashed against the window, trapped in a booth at Cosmos with Booster sitting by his side, and XR across the empty table.

"Remind me why were out in an eatery when we could be…I don't know…apprehending the shadow creature?" Zeryll posed the question in a nonchalant way.

"Two words, my icy friend," XR stated while folding his hands; "Hostage situation."

"XR," Booster shook his head at the robots quip before turning to Zeryll. "It's team bondage. We have to get to know each other before we start kicking bad guys into PC-7. It's like a tradition!"

"Traditions," Zeryll grimaced. "How quaint."

Booster started rambling about how Team Lightyear was such a closely-knit team, and grew to being like a family over the years, and how even though this grouping was temporary until Mira got better and Buzz re-enlisted himself again, they could still be great pals too. To avoid listening to the dribble, Zeryll tried to use a common meditative strategy, where he sunk inside himself by mentally going through every battle tactic he knew. All too soon, Booster interrupted his concentration.

"TY! FOP" the red Jo-Ad leapt from his seat, rushing up to hug the two rangers in a giant hug.

Ty Parsec winced from the bone-crushing embrace, while Fop simply laughed, "We're delighted to see you too!"

Ty struggled to breathe, "Now would you mind putting us down?"

Booster not being one to question his friends immediately released the rangers, allowing them to fall onto the floor in the process.

"Oh, I'm, sorry!" Booster immediately apologized. I just have to get used to the fact that this is not Jo-Ad; you guys are too easily lifted off your feet."

Fop immediately picked up the conversation; "Oh Booster, you affectionate sweetheart! It's no trouble at all."

"Tell that to my chiropractor," Ty rolled his eyes.

"So what are you guys doing here?" Booster missed that sarcastic comment.

"We were just on our way back to Star Command, and I wanted to try out this cute little dining place. We don't have restaurants in Tangea; just private chefs to cater to our every need," Fop looked around the place. "Oh look at this. There are little menus, and a waitress that serves everyone at once! Oh my, those uniforms are darling." He was having a great time immersing himself in the diner.

While Booster was explaining to Fop how everything worked, and XR went after them to see if he could sucker Fop into buying a commemorative napkin holder from the eating establishment, Ty slid into the booth opposite of Zeryll.

"Hello," Zeryll acknowledged the forced company. "You're enjoying this as much as I am, I take it?"

Ty narrowed his eyes in slight annoyance, "I just wanted to punch in the time card and blast on home, but _noooooo_, my blue partner over there just had to stop at every 'amazing' site along the way."

"Where to?" Zeryll was intrigued by this slightly cynical human with very large eyes. The similarities in their situations amused him to no end.

"The gas station, traffic cones, random starships along the way so he could chat with the ordinary 'peasants' as he called them," Ty moaned, dropping his head into his hands.

"It's been a long day?" Zeryll could hardly hide his amusement.

"It's been a long day," Ty answered back.

Zeryll made a mental note: if he did terminate anyone, he'd spare this Parsec person. The guy was too amusing. Now that AI on the other hand…he couldn't be too sure. He couldn't decide between stripping the robot for parts, completely rewiring his circuit board, or placing his bodiless head into a trash compactor thus allowing him to keep his torso and empty dome as a trophy.

"So can I interest you on getting the waitress's digits?" XR nudged Fop. "She'd be able to cater to your every need, for a price that is."

"Yep, definitely the trash compactor," Zeryll made up his mind.

"So how were you paired up with that Doppler over there?" Zeryll asked while calmly sipping some water—ice water to be exact.

"It's a long story," Ty warned.

Zeryll motioned towards the trio, with Booster demonstrating the function of the cash register to Doppler by ordering over half the entrées, Fop gawking at what Booster defined was loose change (who knew Galactic pennies were round), and XR offering to convert some of Doppler's Tangean dollars into UB currency, for a conversion fee. "We've got plenty of time. Those fellows will be occupied for a while."

Ty conceded, "Fine, I'll tell you, but it's not as glamorous as you might think."

Zeryll answered, "Try me."

After taking a deep breath, and looking out the window, Ty resumed telling his story. "I was re-enlisted within Star Command's ranks shortly after Nos-4-A2 was destroyed," Ty explained, his muscles tensing up at the mere mention of that energy vampire's name. "The last of the radioactive moon rock was supposed to be destroyed to prevent me from going Wirewolf again, but through some confusion in paperwork and a little villainous intervention, Zurg managed to steal the remnants of my curse."

"Coffee?" the feline waitress with four arms bustled in, handing Ty his steaming mug of black gold.

"Thanks," he replied, taking the warm mug in his hands. Ty inhaled the intoxicating aroma, allowing the caffeine to perk him up. "Want some?" he asked Zeryll.

"I'd rather not," Zeryll tried not to look disgusted by the aroma. It was all he could do to stomach their water tainted by lemon wedges.

Ty continued, "Now instead of rebooting me off the force, which would be deemed unfair by the populous and reflect badly on Star Command, Nebula agreed to allow me to remain a ranger…but not without a price."

"And that price was blue, blond, and begging for a reality adjustment?" Zeryll presumed.

"Unfortunately," Ty groaned. "Fop, being the decorated officer that he was, had been assigned as my partner just in case my little transformation problem reemerged."

Ty took a couple sips of his coffee—man that was good stuff—and lightened up a bit, "It's not like he's a bad guy or anything; in fact, he's a great ranger, but if it isn't one overbearing partner that jumps at every chance to rescue me, it's another. I just want people to understand that I can handle myself."

Upon Zeryll raising his eyebrow displaying his want for further details, Ty elaborated, "So what if I was rescued fifty-one times? I've done my own share of recon missions too."

"No doubt," Zeryll treaded these matters carefully. It would not do for him to offend Ty based on his incompetence. Not when he still had to deal with the laser-happy police force.

"Greetings old chum!" Fop Doppler grabbed Ty's shoulder, not even startling Ty in the least.

"You were not startled?" Zeryll cast a sidelong glance at Ty. Was it possible that being previously converted into a Wirewolf had sharpened his senses?

"You get used to it after the 63rd time," Ty had a look in a mixture between frustration and sorrowful acceptance.

"64th, you old bean," Fop did not notice that his antics caused Ty no end of grief.

"Like I was keeping count," Ty sighed.

Just then, the waitress came over with a large platter of goods all purchased by Booster. He was treating the team and all. There were plates of deep fried molluscs, three dozen Bunzel bagels, a large helping of Cosmo's chili with extra red giant sauce, crisp golden Freedom fries, Bunzel encrusted fish, multiple sundaes drizzled with melted chocolate, ten large Galactic burgers with extra pickles, lettuce, ketchup, sauerkraut, horseradish, yogurt anchovies, fuzzy fungus, and other sorts of unidentifiable food products placed between the buns, mustard excluded. That was just gross.

And for some reason, XR requested green sherbet instead of his usual premium grade oil.

"That loveable red bundle of good will has treated all of us to this fine…uh…meal," Fop started to severely question the health standards of the establishment when he saw a cockroach waltz on by, but Ty assured him that it was just a really tiny alien; upon further questioning by Fop, Ty reluctantly added that Buzz had saved them earlier on some mission or other. Those advanced bug civilians were allowed to walk on the tables to avoid getting squashed as they tried to place an order—crumb sized of course.

"So where are the other two characters?" Zeryll asked. "Aren't they coming to ingest this organic fuel too, or did you manage to lose them?" If so, Zeryll was going to commend him.

"No, they're coming. Booster had to stop by the bathroom, and XR always wanted to see what they were like, as he had never actually had the need to enter one so never saw it with his own optical units. So, eat up and enjoy while I go off to find a suitable drink," Fop explained to the group in general before he turned on his heels to find the manager of the establishment and inquire about a custom order.

After a couple minutes, Booster bustled into the booth besides Zeryll, with XR trailing behind him.

"Oh goodie; the food's here!" Booster was pleased to have a hot meal waiting for him.

"How can you still have your appetite after going through _that_?" XR motioned towards the doors of doom, behind which a stench reeked so badly, that his artificial olfactory senses wanted to induce vomiting; he came so close to losing his entire oil tank supply. "Do they ever clean that place?"

"Well it _is_ chili day," Booster explained. "And it doesn't agree with many digestive systems."

"Then certain people shouldn't eat it!" XR's cheeks started to fill up with hot bubbling oil, but he held it down. "Man, that place almost made me throw up, and vomiting is not in my programming!"

"Neither is sarcasm, but that doesn't stop you," Zeryll noted. Upon receiving a glare from the robot, he shrugged, "What? I'm just stating a fact."

"Oh come now," Fop came back to the table with a sizzling cup of Tangean tea in his hands, with freshly squeezed Tangean berries for that added kick. "Don't be so harsh on the little robot. I find his quirks quite adorable!"

He slid into the seat besides Ty, leaving XR to stand awkwardly outside of the booth.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry; did I take your seat?" concern shone in his voice.

"…nah, it's okay; happens all the time really," XR tried to hide the hurt look on his face as he gazed around the room until he spotted a moveable stool, which he dragged over to the end of the table, elbowing between packs of customers along the way. "See? Everything worked out."

"Glad to hear it buddy!" Booster didn't notice the tinge of sadness and annoyance in XR's voice chip. "Now, let's dig in!" As Booster was wolfing down his food at a remarkable pace, Fop was sipping his tea, and Ty was snacking on a flaky scone that Fop had turned him onto, Zeryll looked on with a look of revulsion.

"Oh, I forgot to ask," Booster commented, with melted ice-cream dripping down the side of his mouth. "Do you want one of the burgers, or are you going to try the chili?"

"Me…eating that?" Zeryll shook his head. "Uh, thanks but I'm already full."

"What, you want a salad instead?" XR chimed in. "Watching your weight or something?"

"No I am not watching my weight, you ridiculous hunk of corrupted metal," Zeryll spoke in a chilling tone. "And I don't eat greenery. That's for herbivores."

"Then what do you like to eat?" Booster was intrigued. Maybe he could try the exotic dish later.

Zeryll thought 'bloody meat' in his head, with red wine fresh from the carcass, but instead replied, "Sirloin steak, rare."

"Looks like Z has some expensive tastes," Fop added, causing the rest of the company minus Zeryll to drop their jaws.

XR hopped off his stool, extending his legs until he could reach the noble's mouth and promptly cover it with his arms, "Are you insane?"

"Whmp hm umph bhh?" Fop tried to mumble 'what did I do?' from behind the mechanical arms.

"Don't go around calling people 'Z,'" XR warned. "Do you want to cause wide-scale panic, and make people think that Zurg is here?"

"Zurg is here?" a random customer with green skin grew alarmed. He stood up so quickly from his table, causing it to tip over and slide the contents of his meal shooting towards a fly-like alien, with a soup bowl landing on the enraged customer's head. The buzzing mad alien grabbed the nearest lemon meringue pie and hurled it across the room, intending to hit the green alien that soiled his face, but ended up missing and hit another parson, who started blindly shuffling around the room as the sunglasses protecting his delicate light-sensitive eyes were lost in a mess of whip cream. As he crouched down onto the ground in a frantic search for the glasses, the unobservant waitress tripped over his back, toppling over his side and causing her tray of dirty dishes to fly to various corners of the room and shatter on impact, scattering scraps of food everywhere. This cascade of events caused a large food fight of large proportions. It was such a blur of flying food and other less savory items that the ensuing madness cannot be described.

And so the trip ended with Booster chewing the pecan—or was it hazelnut—pie that landed in his mouth, XR used a wiper to scrape the gunk off his domed helmet before it hardened, Fop cheered with glee at the impromptu trip to the cleaners he was going to receive (causing Ty to gripe even more about his fate in life), and Zeryll was silently fuming, with his hair soaking wet. It still managed to defy gravity and stick up straight into the air, but that could have been because the strands were sticky from the fruit punch.

"Next time, we order takeout," Zeryll seethed.

* * *

Zurg was led to an oval room. The place had no odor—it was quite the sterile environment. But the lay of the room itself more than made up for the lack of olfactory stimulation, not just because of the intricately woven rug covering the ground, based on complicated images of rivers, forests, and other things that once existed on their home planet stitched by hand, or because of the intricately carved gothic mirrors covering the walls, but because of a simple mahogany chair: a very pricey commodity.

Those types of goods were viewed as interesting oddities to the Zinnians, and could only be harvested from other planets in the past, through negotiation with their people, until the Emperor forbade contact with inferior beings. That only caused the prices of plant based objects to get even higher, with everyone bidding for the last few scraps of foreign materials.

"Wow," Zurg gawked at the table. He tentatively ran his silver fingers along the surface of it.

"Be CAREFUL With that," Win warned him. "You still have your gauntlets on." He quickly came up from Behind Zurg, snatching his hands off the table, and pointing towards the sharp tips of his gloves. "You almost scratched the wood."

"Sorry," Zurg meekly replied; his head bowed with shame. "I'll behave…"

Win eyed the young prince with some exhaustion in his eyes as he gave in to his softer side, "There there, young Zadok," he patted the purple lad's back, however awkwardly. "No harm done. Just keep your hands to yourself from now on."

"Alright," Zurg agreed, not wanting to screw this up. "Soooo, where are you off to now?" he asked, as the elder Zinnian went off into the convoluted bowels of the ship.

"I'm off to the Council, to reestablish your presence within our community," Win answered, not so much because he wanted to help the overly eccentric emperor-to-be, but because he did not want him in such close proximity to his person. That and he just knew that Zurg would damage something. He did have his destructive tendencies.

And so Win continued down his journey past halls decorated with fine tapestries, leaving Zurg to contemplate his fate alone.

"What do you mean I'm stuck with him?" Win was indignant. He was in the center of the circular room, with rows of the six other Council members and various government officials surrounding him on all sides, seated in curved golden pews; each hand made in the gesture signifying that the final decision had been reached. (The index and middle finger bent towards the person being sentenced, and the thumb thrust between the fourth finger and the pinky).

The Council members were distinguished from the commonly dressed officials through their royal blue robes draping over their forms.

"It has been decided," the first Councilman started.

"That as you so wish to uphold the laws," the second one continued.

"Responsibility has been placed on your shoulders," the third one explained.

"So as not to burden our Lord, whose health has been negatively affected by his youngling," the fourth one concluded.

"But it is HIS offspring," Win grew annoyed. "Should not HE take care of it?"

"Simply because you are the one that disobeyed the Emperor's orders," the fifth Councilman spoke.

"And that must not go unpunished, no matter how pure your intentions were," the sixth finished the discussion. "We are done here."

"But that's not fair," Win grumbled, but he knew he would get nowhere with these unimaginative cods. Rules were meant to be bent, at least a little.

"Do not speak out of term, Win," the first Council member chided him. "Did you forget proper protocol that quickly? As the law states the exile's life will be spared, and until his final fate is decided you are to care for him as you care for the law. Is that understood?"

"Don't make things worse on yourself," the sixth Council member forewarned.

"He was always a bit of a troublemaker, wasn't he?" the third one started what would be a torrent of gossip.

"_Nghhhh_," Win groaned under his breath. It was just his luck, wasn't it? To care for the progeny of…him…the false leader he so despised. Disregarding the laws, and worst of all—disregarding love.

Enough. Now was not the time to dabble in the errors of the past. Perhaps he'd be able to make something of the young Prince. Who knows? Perhaps with one cog, he could change the work of the entire system of their civilization. Perhaps….but he wasn't one to gamble. He'd have to work in other methods to ensure the survival of their customs and people.

"Well isn't this delightful?" he rubbed his temple with his gauntlet covered fingers as soon as he was left alone in the room of Atonement and Justice. After all, to show any signs of displeasure with a sentence only resulted in a harsher sentence, and he wasn't about to let a bunch of shallow sadistic fools have their way with him.

"I suppose it's time to see to the young master…" he mused, hands clasped behind his back, as he strolled out through a slender hallway and towards his room housing the future Evil Emperor Zurg.


End file.
